2025 Matchguide Week 48

 Yasu Urano vs Akito, 11/16
Two guys grappling in the dojo for 60 minutes and livestreaming it seemingly from a phone camera. That is pretty much the most reverseviperhold match that can happen in 2025, so I am obligated to love it, but there was a ton of great stuff going on here. Akito is a total grappling freak, the guy was in the junior olympics and he used to wrestle Yasushi Sato 3 times a month in his Sportiva days. He rarely gets to show off that kind of talent in DDT, so I am glad he got to let out his freak in this. Really a great showing as he mixed in a ton of sweet techniques, some great leg grapevine moves, unique pins, the guy has a knack for this kind of clinical mat wrestling match. Urano is such a deceptive technician, he doesn't have quite the flashy techniqe of Akito, but he can really get down and gritty, at times he would just snatch an arm and armdrag Akito down really aggressively. He is also really vocal and was constantly letting out these miserable death rattles, like this match was totally killing him, and Akito would really cinch in any headlock or sleeper so hard that you buy wheezing old Yasu Urano passing out in the moment. They do get in a ton of neat details and unique touches, really a study of how you can work each hold to the maximum. It is a bit slow here and there and they do lose steam a bit towards the end, though I appreciate they didn't even try to tack on a bunch of nearfalls, they just kept struggling and resisting down to the last minute and that rules. I get that this is a highly specific type of match that these two probably did because they would get a kick out of it more than everyone else. But fuck if you wanna see some slick leg grapevines and awesome inventive headscissor work and shoulder exploding armbar pins and more gritty struggling over takedowns and pins and leglocks than you can imagine this is the match for you. Definitely one of my favourite bouts of the year, old school and raw passion for pro wrestling at its purest.

 Leon & Makoto vs Moeka Haruhi & Misa Kagura, PURE-J 6/29

Super enjoyable joshi tag that doesn't waste much time and just delivers non-stop action the joshi way. Everything felt nice and aggressive here, these 4 all have offense that hits hard. Kagura, who is yet another girly girl in a frilly pink dress looks solid. Makoto is putting a lot of force into her kicks these days, she was really fun here kicking people out the way with her big boots. Leon is classy as always, I could watch her impale people with spears all day long, and her tilt a whirl slams are great. Haruhi may have been the best of the bunch, her offense is plenty violent, just crushing people with double stomps and knee drops, and she has some impressive wrestling skill with cool suplexes, making intelligent use of the straight jacket hold, and even catching Leon in a crafty pin. Finishing run had a lot of fun creative stuff and never loses your attention. It wasn't a super deep match or anything but there wasn't any egregious noselling or overkill either and sometimes you just wanna watch 4 cool wrestlers go full bore.

Ali Najima & Tomoki Hatano vs Takahiro Hirakimoto & Yu Shimizu, Sportiva 11/26
Najima vs Yu Shimizu feud continues, which makes this fun. Hatano is a bit of a downgrade compared to yuta Oya in the tag from the previous week to say the least. Hirakimoto is still in the black trunks rookie phase and only doing a body slam and suplex, but he's alright. As a result the match did not go as deep as the tag from the weak before but it's nice to see Najima and Shimizu continueing their animosities. The finish builds right on the tag from the week before and that's always a nice thing to see.


Senka Akatsuki & Seri Yamaoka vs Takumi Iroha & Sareee, Marvelous 10/24
Usual good stuff from this crew. Akatsuki and Yamaoka are facing two monsters, but they are still busy having contempt for each other. A bit predictable, but reliable rookie vs veterans stuff, and they do surprise you with some things they bust out. Senka has been good all year long, at this point it's just a matter of when she will do the next step. Iroha and Sareee did their thing pretty much, and Seri was fairly impressive here.

Marino Saihara & Sakura Mizushima vs Anri & Yukina Uehara (AWG 7/11)

Fast paced, quite hard hitting pro wrestling that doesn't waste your time. I have no idea why AWG athresses are taking wrestling more seriously than almost everyone else in the country but here it is, there were no jokes here, no cutesy stuff, they just wrestled a really convincing match. Anri is another AWG wrestler that looks deceptively harmless but is actually really intense. This was mostly about Saihara vs Anri, with Saihara playing the veteran that can't be knocked down and Anri being a really good underdog that keeps coming back. I really liked how they seemed to go for the traditional rookie beatdown at first, but then Anri was able to catch Mizushima with a surprise thrust kick to the throat and then lock in this really cool rolling strangle hold while Uehara kept Saihara at bay. Mizushima is also in the process of becoming a really respectable wrestler. The moment where she caught Ueharas kick and landed her painful looking leg breaker was great and example of great timing as Uehara seemed to be in control and about to gain momentum. I also dug how they protected the submissions. When Mizushima went for her signature bridging figure 4, it was broken up just as she went into the bridge. Later, Saihara was trying to lock in a chickenwing crossface with all her might, the tension building as she started to get her fingers together and then the submission being broken at the last second. It's basic stuff but you rarely see it done like this these days. Once it came down to Anri vs Saihara it was really intense stuff and just really good wrestling. The finish is Saihara landing a jumping knee strike to Anris face, hitting a judo throw and locking in a plain straight armbar and cranking it for the tap, which is a really FUTEN finish to happen in 2025. Am I saying this is a FUTEN match? Hell no, but the energy is a ton of fun. AWG has one hell of a back catalogue with even minor matches like this being really compelling.

2025 Matchguide
 

BATOS CAFE 2/23/2020

 Manabu Hara vs. Onryo

It's BattlARTS vs. WYF baby! Just 20 years late! Onryo in his broken down old age has become a good little worker and this was a ton of fun. Opening grappling where Onryos radiation dust kept annoying Hara was really fun, and Onryo produced a nice highlight when he caught Hara in a neat pin combo. They made it clear the ghost wasn't on Haras level as a grappler but he could do hang on and maybe do something ghostly to catch the shooter. Onryo controlling by working Haras leg was a bit trite and didn't mean much. The finishin stretch on the other hand was made fun by Onryo busting out some surprisingly slick moves while Hara just tried to armbar the zombie. Satisfying match up.

SUSHI vs. Kagura

Kagura is some sleaze junior in a cheap skull mask. He seems to be decently athletic. This was a slow junior match and kind of trite. They really needed to work some decent basic opening exchanges or something. SUSHI I think has worked AJPW but he really doesn't show much at all here, and he was supposed to be the face, Kagura did all the somewhat cool things. Crap finish too.

Yasu Urano vs. Hiroshi Yamato

Wow! Surprisingly fun match. Is matwork becoming trendy on the Japanese indies now or something? I'm here for it. They honest to god did some pretty good matwork here. Urano had these neat leg stretches and takeovers and looked like he should be with the Mumejuku crew. There was also a sequence of duelling strait jacket holds that was straight out of WoS. Yamamoto looked pretty decent. They also went into a sequence of armdrags at one point that felt honest to god spontaneous and cool. The finish wasn't as exciting as they went for comedy for some reason. Still, I probably should watch more of these guys.

Yuki Ishikawa vs. GENTARO

This was all grappling, if you can get into match that is all matwork you will like this. Honestly thought the grappling here was up there with Yuki Ishikawa vs. Carl Greco. Ishikawa is a bonafide master at this stage, and GENTARO is really tenacious and matches him. They make no secret that Ishikawa is dictating things with all the awesome and unusual stuff he was doing, which makes the match. GENTARO doesn’t get to grapple often but he’s really good at it. He kept locking in hammerlocks and short arm scissors from odd angles and it made it feel like Ishikawa was facing a 50s grappler. Several amazing moments (the painful leglock battle, all the choke attempts including GENTAROs sleeper, the leglock/head and arm choke battle, the ending) and Ishikawa honestly looked like the GOAT.

Yuiga vs. Rion Mizuki vs. Tatsuhito Takaiwa vs. Minoru Tanaka

On a show full of serious undercard matches, they do a weird 4 way dance where they break every other minute to drink shots. Some solid individual exchanges here, especially dig Yuiga who's such a crowbar, but everyone just did their bread and butter and you can imagine there wasn't much depth with the stipulation. I would've rather seen this run as a tag as I imagine Yuiga and pretty boy Mizuki vs. the junior vets would've been pretty cool.

THE LIBRARY

Tanomusaku Toba Documentation #16

Tanomusaku Toba vs. Takashi Sasaki, DDT 11/19/2000 - GREAT

Man, I love the fact Takashi Sasaki had an Ishikawa/Ikeda like feud going with Toba. Whenever these two stepped in the ring against each other the violence just reached next level. They just go toe to toe the whole time and it‘s a rush. It wasn‘t your turn-my turn style exchanges either, both guys were rushing and trying to outgun each other. Aside from all the stiffness there are some really good moments of countering the other guys onslaught. I once again loved Toba busting out his insane apron kick, as well as the huracanrana into punch rush. Really good finish, too. This wasn‘t quite as epic in scope as their singles earlier in the year (that was a main event while this was a semi) but this was still 8 minutes of super badass pro wrestling.

Tanomusaku Toba & Tomohiko Hashimoto & Jason the Terrible vs. Tomohiro Ishii & Issei Fujisawa & Shigeo Kato, DDT 12/12/2001 - FUN

Now this is a match up! This match has honest to god Jason The Terrible hitting the mat with Shigeo Kato. Outside of that this was really fun. Hashimoto is cool just pounding people into the mat with STOs over and over, and Kato is a fun heel who knows how to turn up the violence. Whenever Ishii and Toba were facing each other the violence increased a lot, mostly just Ishii brutalizing Toba, right in the opening he hits a jaw cracking lariat on Toba, then launches him over the rope with a gorilla press before hitting a reckless dropkick on the floor. Toba held the match together taking an asskicking from the heel team and being sympathetic. We don‘t really get him teeing off on somebody but he has some cool moments hitting flying kicks and a cool double team with Hashimoto where Hashimoto hits an STO while Toba kicks the guy in the face. Jason looks good hitting cool spin kicks and powerslams. Fujisawa is the Kensuke Sasaki imitator and he was imitating multiple wrestlers in this and he was a bit clunky but didn‘t derail the match with jokes. Weird to see a match with this many whacky characters in it be played completely straight but it was good.

Tanomusaku Toba vs. Yasu Urano, DDT 8/10/2008 - FUN

 One of those examples of a random midcarder suddenly working a bit harder when facing the mighty force that is TOBA. Urano seemed to be laying in his dropkicks and lariats harder and some quality stiff exchanges resulted. Toba also busted out some great offense, such as his springboard enzuigiri and a bunch of awesome looking rollups. Perfectly entertaining 5 minute snack.

TANOMUSAKU TOBA DOCUMENTATION PROJECT MASTER LIST

Tanomusaku Toba Documentation Project #11

 

Tanomusaku Toba & Shuji Ishikawa vs. Touro Owashi & Yasu Urano, DDT 2/19/2021 - FUN

In 2021, Toba can be considered semi retiered. This is his sole appearance so far, and he did his thing. Match was semi-comedic and during the opening portions every move seemed to be followed by a joke, so it was never going to be a great match, but I was entertained due to everyone playing their role and some sense of hierarchy being displayed. Urano impressed me during his opening grappling with Shuji. Then, Owashi, who wrestles like an even lazier Akira Taue, employs some scummy tactics to avoid getting hit by Toba. I was starting to zone out during Uranos and Owashis standup routine but thankfully Toba salvaged things by punching Urano in the face hard. Ishikawa did the bare minimum. I mean, when Owashi is outworking you (by doing a forward roll, in this case) you really are just collecting your paycheck. Toba tagged in for the final segment and looked good potatoeing Urano as he always does. Match seemed to be building to a bigger ending stretch but in the end what we got was basically a working boots old man comedy tag and I had fun.

Tanomusaku Toba vs. Takeshi Yamada, Nightmare Pro 2/2/2002 - GREAT

Two guys who have no problem beating the shit out of each other being given 5 minutes. Exactly what you want, no downtime, not much cooperation, and plenty of brutal hits and neat offense. Yamada is a Nightmare Pro/ex-WYF young boy with some fun hybrid powerhouse offense including an Oklahoma stampede and a nasty STO. And Toba just beats the shit out of him and dares him to shoot back. Really dug how the last KO was sold. I think Yamada was lost in the shuffle soon after or became a forgettable seedy brawler.

Added to 2002 MOTY list at #61.

Tanomusaku Toba vs. Fuminori Abe, DDT/BASARA 4/20/2018 - EPIC

Toba is older and slower, but he can still bring it in a wild fight. This was Abe basically working a sleazy 90s West Japan or CAPTURE match, which is kind of the height of the artform for a guy like him. This was probably the best I‘ve seen Abe look, simply because he slotted right into Tobas style of wrestling, and busted out some slick submissions. Opening minutes were pretty damn stiff already. Toba looks old, fat, and kind of alcoholic, so him taking these blunt force kicks from Abe looked brutal. Then, Abe decided to put on boxing gloves too so he could punch Toba back. It made the match feel even more like a mixed rules match from a 90s sleaze card. Floor brawling with both guys basically eskimo boxing was pretty insane. Finishing run had both guys eating and dishing out some pretty brutal kicks and punches and a cool strap drop moment when Abe takes the gloves off again. Toba almost getting his foot snapped by an Abe Dragon Screw and then punching his way out of a figure was damn great. Brutal finish. Toba was a champion in this, and crazy as it sounds it ended up being Abes best match I‘ve seen too. There‘s just something about Tobas formula of compact, wild and violent matches that is so much better than the usual main events.

TANOMUSAKU TOBA DOCUMENTATION PROJECT MASTER LIST

Tanomusaku Toba Documentation #8

 

Tanomusaku Toba vs. Shinjuku Shark (WEW 5/3/2003) - GREAT

Man, Shark is pure scum. The opening minutes of this were pretty fun as Toba has the superior striking arsenal, so Shark would use pro wrestling moves, such as a dropkick and even a Capture Suplex. The second half was another Rocky style punchout though with some sick punches and counterpunches. Toba looks great dishing it out here including an awesome leaping knee to Sharks face. 7 minutes well invested.

Tanomusaku Toba vs. Shinjuku Shark, XWF 9/8/2008 - EPIC

This was the best match I’ve seen between the two so far. Shark seemed to be doing better than usual early on, moving through Tobas kick advantage, until Toba started kicking the hell out of his leg. Shark went down and it seemed he was done, but Toba gave him another dickish kick, prompting Shark to dig deep and go all out. Shark ended up catching Tobas kicks and hitting some dragon screws and even a Capture Suplex, which Toba sold great with his usual ragdoll bumping. Finishing run had both guys unloading with punches to the face and several great near Kos. Best boxing gloves only match I’ve seen so far.

Tanomusaku Toba & Yasu Urano vs. Hikaru Sato & Tomomitsu Matsunaga, DDT 2/10/2009 – GREAT

A good example of what makes Toba such a valuable worker. I’m not sure Matsunaga has ever been in an outstanding match, but put him against Toba, and suddenly you get this random fatboy undercarder to do some cool uncooperative wrestling and throwing potatoes. Matsunaga matching up with Urano was ok, but you can tell Toba gets the most out of guys like these. Sato looked about 5000 times better here than during his AJPW run. He was working hard, mixing in cool grappling and meshing well in this pro style environment. His interactions with Toba were great once again. These two guys handily made this match worth watching. Toba was Toba, and again busted out his nasty elbow to the throat at one point.

 

TANOMUSAKU TOBA DOCUMENTATION PROJECT MASTER LIST