Friday, February 26, 2021

Jom Catches Up on GLEAT Vol. 1

   (Written by Jom)


       I'll be 100% honest here: I haven't been following GLEAT. Which, knowing my own tastes, is very weird for me. I love the U-System and GLEAT seems committed to being the next promotion in the acclaimed style's history, I love Tamura and his booking (see U-Style for proof he's pretty good at it), and I love all the members of the roster we've seen so far, with both GLEAT young guns Soma Watanabe and Takanori Ito looking great. And yet, after the first GLEAT show last year, I've not watched a single Youtube match of theirs. Honestly, I still have no idea why since I would definitely enjoy those matches more than the debut show, and I say that knowing I really enjoyed that event. Luckily, this changes now. GLEAT currently has nine matches on their channel, and each match is labeled as "Experimental Match Vol. _". Starting with this post, I will be reviewing every GLEAT match on Youtube, going volume by volume.

Soma Watanabe vs. Mitsuya Nagai

    This match was also under UWFi rules, a ruleset GLEAT uses alternatingly with normal puro rules. From the start of this match, it was very clear who had the advantage. Even if you didn't know the difference of experience, Nagai shows very quickly who is more comfortable in UWFi rules, putting Watanabe in a leg lock that forces him to use one of his points to escape. From that point on, Watanabe in fighting from below, and although he's fighting hard, Nagai is consistently able to keep him down. The grappling between the two is much less slick than other matches, with Nagai being pretty old and Watanabe obviously being new to shoot style, but there's a level of roughness to it that really works. Sometimes, the grappling can be too slick and seem somewhat choreographed, but the way these two wrestle feels real and violent. Speaking of violent, Nagai is a total killer in this match, throwing some hard kicks to Watanabe's ribs and using these really good joint-popping holds, most notably a beautiful leg keylock. Watanabe isn't a slouch either though, as although his grappling definitely needs work, he does throw some okay slaps and did a great backdrop to Nagai, getting Nagai to lose a point on a down. This, however, was the only point Nagai lost. By the end of the match, the score was 4-0, with Watanabe having been forced to use up all his points on rope breaks. Nagai was able to take advantage of how worn down Watanabe was to put in this disgusting arm trapped guillotine, almost having Watanabe in a hammer lock while choking the life out of him, getting the submission victory. The match overall was pretty good. At no point did anything look bad, and the sloppiness in some of the ground exchanges never went from a positive to a negative, but at the same time nothing really notable happened. This was a good introduction to what Watanabe can do in a shoot environment, as well as a reminder of how great Nagai can be.

Rating: B

Takanori Ito vs. Yutaka Yoshie

    This whole match had some weird editing quirks, with the inside of the ring being superimposed on top of a recording of the outside of the ring (to hide whoever was out there I assume), but it never got in the way of my enjoyment of this match. Speaking of, this was really good for a lot of reasons. I haven't seen much of Yoshie and his bright pink singlet since his NJPW days, so it's great to see he's awesome as ever. He's also big as ever, which plays big into this match. He crushes Ito throughout the match with body blocks while also stopping Ito in his tracks when he starts getting momentum by just planting himself into the ground. Ito is definitely more polished than Watanabe, throwing absolutely great kicks and elbows, including a great leg sweep and spinning heel kick. He's also got some really good grappling game, and at one point is able to hit a backdrop suplex on Yoshie, which I can't begin to praise. However, no amount of kicks or suplexes can stop the absolute raw BEEF of Yoshie, who flattens Ito with a thesz press and senton, before hitting some great urakens and doing a DIVING BODY PRESS to Ito. Ito is down for the 3 count, and I assume for lot longer. This had some slow moments in the first half, with some of the basic working between the two lacking any energy, but the peaks of this match were pretty high. Hope Yoshie sticks around in GLEAT going forward, and I cannot wait to see more of Ito in singles action.

Rating: B

Takanori Ito/Soma Watanabe vs. Daisuke Sekimoto/Kaz Hayashi

    I think this match sold me on Watanabe entirely. Everyone in this match performed well, and Ito was great as the hot tag guy, but Watanabe just did his job near perfectly. Sekimoto and Ito brought some great fire early on. Actually, they brought great fire through the entire match, which is something I knew Sekimoto could do but Ito being only one step behind him in that regard was awesome to see. Hayashi has always been great, and here in a veteran juniors role he worked really well. Watanabe, however, was just at another level. His selling is notably good, really making the damage he sustained in the match apparent, but honestly, one moment in particular sold me on him. Towards the end of the match, he tried to whip Hayashi off the ropes but Hayashi countered into a handspring kick. This might be controversial, but I usually hate handspring moves. Most of the time, the person doing them isn't fast enough to make it look realistic, and it's extremely rare that the person receiving the move sells in a way to cover for that lack of speed. Watanabe sold in the right way and made it fucking work. I cannot saw enough how cool that was to me. Just moving past his selling, he has such a great arsenal too, doing an awesome forward roll forearm smash with hang-time reminiscent of KANON's volleyball spike chop (reminding me I should probably consider getting into JTO), as well as a beautiful missile dropkick. Honestly, with moves like this, I've realized Watanabe probably shouldn't spend much time with the UWFi rules matches. He's much more suited having normal puro matches, in contrast to Ito's superiority in the UWFi rules matches. Having Ito as the shooter ace and Watanabe as the puro ace would be a really cool concept for GLEAT to stand out, and both men would fit those roles perfectly given enough time to grow. Speaking of Ito, I definitely don't want to forget to mention his FALLAWAY SLAM TO SEKIMOTO. I'm not joking, Ito's strength is INSANE. He also did his backdrop again, and honestly, it has to be one of the best in the Japanese scene today, with only Hideyoshi Kamitani's backdrop coming to mind when trying to think of one done better. Again, both Sekimoto and Hayashi were great here, but I feel like I need to say just how awesome Ito and especially Watanabe were. Although Sekimoto got the win for his team with a nasty lariat, this match has made me extremely hopeful for GLEAT's two young aces.

Rating: B+



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