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 

Exploring... Dyna-Mido

Dyna-Mido vs A-Z, Shin Osaka Pro Wrestling(?) 2/16/2020

Dyna-Mido is a fascinating wrestler. Apparently, he’s a veteran of the JWA Kansai days, so he is a stalwart of serious no ring pro wrestling. When you search his name on YouTube, you get all kind of wonderous results. Matches in Fu*ck, battles against grapplers and MMA fighters, fighting in parking lots with no ring. And this was the no-ring shootstyle action that your brain craves. I think I’ve only seen A-Z in FU*CK one or two times, and his Cagematch profile reveals that he’s been creeping around the seediest places ranging from EXIT to KOBE Meriken and other micro indies. Apparently he belongs to something called AVANZAR which mainly seems to specialize in no-ring wrestling so A-Z has quite the pedigree. But A-Z is a serious shooter who kicks really hard. These two level some hellish strikes against each other here. It’s a totally serious match and it rules. A-Zs kicks are hard and he landed this one enzuigiri to Midos skull that was horrific. Mido is as solid as a brick and he looks tough as hell here absorbing punishing kicks and firing back with brutal headbutts and elbows of his own. There is some fun groundwork, too. The audience for this couldn’t be more than 20 people and it’s just filmed with a single overhead cam, yet these two went out here and tried to crush each other. This is the kind of stuff that embodies pro wrestling.

Dyna-Mido vs Yuko Miyamoto, B168 5/30/2021

This takes place on a parking lot, in the blazing sun, on some mats that are flimsily held together by a plastic wrapping. It’s a deathmatch too and they got barbedwire and a ladder and other things. There are a bunch of ladies in the audience for this too, mostly with hats or towels on their head because of the sun burning and it’s during the height of COVID. It’s insane to think the Japanese authority allowed this to happen at the time. They do some snappy opening chain wrestling before Miyamoto grabs a barbedwire bat and bangs it into Midos shin to escape a front headlock. Miyamoto is clever enough to do the Sakuraba dragging spin to Mido on the pavement which I assume is scorching hot. It soon turns into a surreal gritty trenchfight with Mido bleeding in this parking plot. Miyamoto looks really sharp here, making the general deathmatch affair more fun with his explosive kicks and athleticism, and Mido is just pure guts. Miyamoto wraps barbedwire around Midos had and snapmares him across the mat in an incredibly nasty spot that I don’t recall seeing before. There’s Miyamotos cool spin kicks, Mido has a really nice Northern Lights Suplex.. at one point Mido gets hit by a truck. Mido ends up taking a press slam off the ladder and bounces really hard on those flimsy mats. There are gritty no hands headbutts and a few cool moments that caught me unexpectedly. This match isn’t anything intelligent, it’s just two crazy guys fighting and bleeding grittily in a parking lot and occasionally smashing a barrel or barbedwire board into the other. Truck getting involved added to the craziness too. Another piece of immensely sick and enjoyable raw pro wrestling.

Dyna-Mido vs Jun Masaoka, B168 12/12/2015

This also on just a mat held in a bright but small Japanese multi purpose hall. Description says this show was held without prior announcement so yeah they work their butts off here. Masaoka is a bouncy lithe junior wrestler and his bouncing around makes this pretty fun. More fast paced action than you expect from such a match and Mido is as solid and reliable as you need a thickly built shaven headed ass kicker to be. He made sure to really punish Masaoka slamming him on the tin mat, and the contrast between Masaokas twisty rollups and high jumping dropkicks and Midos lariats and slams makes this a really fun match.

Dyna-Mido vs Maori Kawashima, Steak Pro Wrestling 10/16/2021

This is held in a small BJJ gym room and it looks like they just glued some foam mats together to make a ring. I am fascinated with this. Kawashima has been a bit of an indy hotness with his cool look, but Mido just eats him up here. Mido toys with Kawashima on the mat in fun ways and when Kawashima tries to get into a strike contest Midos elbows are just way too hard for him. Both guys try to go for sneaky rollups but the time limit runs out after like 5 minutes. Probably the most grappling I’ve seen Mido do and it was pretty fun, it does make me want to see him against someone who can provide a bit more of a challenge.

Dyna-Mido & Daisuke Masaoka vs Jun Kasai & Kamui, Steak Pro Wrestling 10/16/2021

Oh, they had another match that day, so that’s why the previous match went short. This is not as gritty and insane as the Miyamoto match, but it’s still quite fun Mido plays the crazy old coot here, and he does get his head skewered. It was even kinda smart since Mido got pinned early and after the restart they kept teasing another pin on him. Masaoka and Kamui are pretty fun hitting their flying headscissors stuff in this no ring environment. And Kasai is good as he always is, does this guy simply have infinite HP? Gritty finish where Mido takes a nasty double arm facebuster on his head with the skewers in.

WMF Marvelous Days 7th 12/27/2003

 GENTARO & Yuko Miyamoto vs. Junji Tanaka & Mineo Fujita

Junior opening match! This was JIP and I really would‘ve liked the whole thing. Junji is such a fun technician to throw into a match worked at a fast pace, really mixes it up nicely with all these athletic juniors. GENTARO is just super sharp, and he will also turn around and throw nice punches. Miyamoto was in young lion trunks here and already looking really polished and athletic. He hit a springboard diving headbutt with crazy distance and later almost killed Fujita with a brutal lariat. Fujita also looked good busting out cool flying armbars and triangle chokes. Everything looked good and they never lost a step, this gets the full indy point for these kind of fun little matches.

Yoji Anjoh & Koichiro Kimura & Ricky Fuji vs. Mr. Gannosuke & Chocoball Mukai & GOEMON

What a match up. Pretty fun stuff for the WAR 6 man-like randomness of it all. Anjoh was fun mugging and throwing punches, Kimura was stiff, Fuji and GOEMON did some cool ratboy exchanges together (did either of them ever face Yoshinari Ogawa?), and Mukai was cool trying to stand up to the shooters and putting his weird finishing hold on people. Gannosuke was basically Choshu here, just hard lariats and sharpshooters and it was cool. I was hoping for a Gannosuke vs. Anjoh faceoff but the Anjoh/Mukai finish was also pretty nice. Everything you can ask for from a random undercard 6 man.

MIKAMI & ONRYO vs. Asian Cougar & Tomoya Adachi

Spot after spot, but if you want spots, these guys will deliver pretty much the best you can get. Cougar had switched his stuff up a lot since the 90s, and he still had a bunch of crazy moves out of nowhere. Sleaze lucharesu boy Tomoya Adachi is a cool addition too and he looks good, really liked his reverse wheelbarrow hold which lead to Cougar once again flying in with a leg drop. MIKAMIs athleticism is crazy during this time, his dive looked like he just jumped from the ceiling, he also busts out a huge moonsault elbow drop, and a big swanton bomb from the top of a ladder. Ladder stuff was fun as they didn‘t take too long setting everything up and they pulled everything off. Loved all the Onryo character moments during the finishing stretch. This was a lot of fun.

GARUDA vs. Tsubasa

Garuda already had suffered a bad neck injury at this point that would cut off his career, but for a guy with a neck injury, he was pretty good in this. Very solid match. Tsubasa showed a lot of spunk, bitchslapping Garuda, taking him out with a spectacular dive, hitting a flip senton and then kicking Garuda in the face etc. He even targeted Garudas bad neck. Pretty good match although it suffered a bit from too many junior matches on this card.

Dick Togo & Tetsuhiro Kuroda vs. Kazuya Yuasa & Seiji Ikeda

Solid if a bit by the numbers heel performance by Togo & Kuroda, cutting off the two young lions. Ikeda was this pudgy guy that they were trying to turn into something, and he had pretty good fire. Kurodas stuff doesn‘t annoy me as much as usual because he is supposed to be an annoying heel here, and he even sets up stuff for Togo in nice ways here and there. Togo was the best guy in the match getting fire out of these schlubby youngsters and hitting really high end sentons. Given a bit more tenure Togo could‘ve done the impossible and amde Kuroda matches watchable on a regular basis. Young guys were kinda bland so it doesn‘t amount to anything more than a solid formula match.

Genichiro Tenryu vs. Mammoth Sasaki

This is what you buy the show for. Tenryu lowers himself to filthy WMF to teach their boy Mammoth a leason. I think I liked this more than Tenryu/Kojima, as from memory this had more awesome Tenryu moments, a bigger asskicking and young Mammoth trying to take down the legend. The opening moments had some fun tubby guys rolling on the mat moment before Sasaki decides to really go for it to which Tenryu responds by simply taking him down and torturing his bad leg a bit. However Sasaki won't let up and soon both guys are throwing punches. Mammoth decides to start the garbage brawling by taking the match to the outside to which Tenryu responds „Sure, you can have it“ and smashes a fucking bottle on his head. Tenryu keeps flinging stuff at Mammoth and really puts a WAR sized assbeating on him just kicking him in the face and pasting him with lariats over and over while Mammoth is selling all big and sympathetic. I wish the 2^nd half were a little less one sided altough Mammoth gets in a good one on Tenryu when he smashes him with the chairs (to a befuddled „He's doing this to ME?“ reaction) and he gets over big just for the amount of punishment he is able to survive before going down. 

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