(Written by Jom)
Soma Watanabe vs. Takanori Ito
For the first time in GLEAT's short history, the promotion's two young aces face off, and in UWFi rules no less. Just from the setup, this feels like a clear statement of what GLEAT intends to present to the world in the near future. Luckily for us, if this match is a sample of GLEAT's future we are potentially in for a wonderful era of pro wrestling. First off, I have to note how much more comfortable Watanabe feels in this ruleset, especially since I said towards the end of the last post that he should avoid UWFi rules matches because of this. Last time against Nagai he felt entirely out of his element at some points, and while he still hasn't fully adapted to the U-System, that's not inherently something he needs to do to make these matches great. He can be a little rough when dealing with ground situations, but once he gets into a nice position he is able to do some really slick transition grappling. Also, while a good amount of his close-up slaps are a little too weak for my taste, when he has some distance between himself and Ito the slaps he throws are like thunderclaps. Ito, meanwhile, is once again an absolute menace. Although this is actually his first UWFi rules match in the YouTube series, he fits like a glove just like I guessed he would, nailing Ito with some real great kicks and slaps throughout, my favorite being a spinning heel kick that actually split Watanabe's guard down the middle. My favorite part of this match, however, has to be Watanabe's selling. I talked before in the last post's tag match that Watanabe had some really great psychology behind his selling, and that continued on here. Watanabe's first point loss was to escape a really snug sleeper hold, and immediately after Ito released it Watanabe just let out this nasty cough. Little things like this really just make a hold that much more impactful, and Watanabe seems like he fully understands that. The ending stretch of this match was pretty great, as Watanabe, seeing that he was 2-5 against Ito and knowing he was about to be forced into another shut-out loss, rushed him with a great combination of slaps and clinch knees, finally securing a knockdown and point loss for Ito. Ito, obviously pissed off at this, responded with his own knee/slap rush, but instead of just taking a knockdown immediately jumped on Watanabe and locked in a guillotine for the submission victory. This match was definitely not perfect, but for two guys that are relative rookies at this style of wrestling, the potential both guys showed was immense and has me pretty excited for what else they do in GLEAT's UWFi matches.
Rating: B+
Soma Watanabe vs. Issei Onitsuka
Onitsuka is one of those #STRONGHEARTS rascals, so you know this is a normal singles rules match. I've only seen a little of his work so far, but I've liked what he's done, and anyone in CIMA's camp usually turns out to be a pretty solid-to-great wrestler. I'll mention this now, but at some point I became entirely aware that for some reason, GLEAT decided that instead of simply putting the audio from the commentary recording, they would put the full video file and simply turn the opacity down very low. Not low enough to keep the main announcer from looking like Zordon at some angles, but thus is to GLEAT I suppose. Watanabe and Onitsuka are pretty similar in style, both being very slick juniors guys, but while Watanabe has the advantage in agility and swiftness, Onitsuka is definitely superior in terms of pure energy. Onitsuka also may be a harder striker, as although Watanabe through some killer forearms (where the hell were these last match?), Onitsuka would always respond with his overhand chops, which by the end of the match had bruised Watanabe's chest to hell. Although both guys definitely worked very hard and did some great wrestling, there weren't many highlights besides the finish. Watanabe is able to connect with his absolutely stunning rebound dropkick, but that isn't enough. He backs up into a corner facing away from Onitsuka, before running KNEES FIRST INTO HIS BACK, still only getting a two count. Watanabe then immediately picks up Onitsuka and grabs the inner part of his leg, hitting a great spinning fisherman driver for another two. At this point, Watanabe decides that it is Hayabusa time, pulling Onitsuka close to the ropes and hitting a great firebird splash for the win. This match overall was fine, as just like I said in my review, it's not very notable besides being another introduction to Soma Watanabe.
Rating: B
Takanori Ito/Soma Watanabe/Kaz Hayashi vs. #STRONGHEARTS(CIMA/T-Hawk/El Lindaman)
If you don't know who #STRONGHEARTS are, then honestly it's gonna be hard to explain, but in a nutshell it's CIMA and his boys just being dudes and beating people up. If you can't be entertained by that then I don't know what to tell you. This match started out with CIMA and Hayashi, which acted as my daily reminder that those Michi boys never age. Both guys are still really good, Hayashi shows some signs of his age but CIMA hasn't aged one bit. Ito and T-Hawk tag in next and they throw live fucking rounds, T-Hawk chopping Ito with mean intent and Ito kicking T-Hawk's shit in. Finally, Lindaman and Watanabe get in, and out of everyone, these guys undeniably had the most chemisty. Just based on the exchanges they had here and later, I'd love to see a singles match between the two. After this point, there's a lot of control exchanges, but #STRONGHEARTS almost always came out on top, using their actual teaming experience to their advantage by making sure to cut off whoever was in the ring anytime an SH member got countered. Everyone in this match got a good amount of time to shine, with most of that spotlight falling on Ito who totally lived up to it. He was not only doing great MMA stuff like before but was also doing some great power moves like a mean shoulder block, a fallaway slam, and his awesome powerslam. He was actually involved in this match's finish too, which was just fucking awesome. Lindaman runs off the ropes towards him but Ito hits a midsection knee, a usual setup for his great leg sweep. Lindaman however jumps over the leg sweep and connects with a rolling elbow, but after getting greedy goes for one more only to eat a head kick, leading into the match ending German suplex. This suplex specifically deserves a mention too as when the bell rang and the match was ended, Ito let go of Lindaman but kept the bridge because of how deep it was. This was a great showcase of the SH crew, as well as some good performances from our GLEAT home army.
Rating: B+
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