(Written by Jom)
Soma Watanabe vs. Takanori Ito
Two volumes in a row we start off with a UWFi rules battle between the future aces. Ito's been the undisputed best guy in this ruleset so far, and this was proven to Watanabe last time they fought when Ito got an emphatic victory. However, Watanabe is obviously not the same man here as he was then. He's immediately a lot more careful against Ito, keeping a certain amount of room between the two of them to avoid Ito's stellar grappling and nasty kicks. When they do engage it feels pretty tightly done, both guys put their all into looking for advantages while also stopping the other man from taking one themselves. Ito obviously has mat superiority, but not only is Watanabe better at escaping from these ground situations, he's also a lot better at strikes and his ability to absolutely pepper Ito with them cannot be denied. With all that said, his opponent is still Ito. Ito's able to fire some great strikes off whenever he's in range, throws Watanabe with some sweet suplexes, and on the ground? It's not even a question of who's better. By the ending, he forces Watanabe into a 5-2 disadvantage point-wise, making him repeatedly go to the ropes to stop Ito's chokes and leg locks. Watanabe, however, refuses to be shut out like he was in his match against Nagai. He finally gets the opening he needs and absolutely blasts Ito with slaps and knees, forcing a knockdown and a lost point for Ito. How does Ito respond? By destroying Watanabe's leg with kicks over and over and over again. Watanabe takes his own knockdown from this but doesn't give up, attempting to keep his hurt leg outside of Ito's reach. This concentration on protecting his leg comes back to bite him, as Ito throws a nasty solebutt to the unprotected stomach, knocking Watanabe down and resulting in Ito's victory via point loss. This was probably the best UWFi rules match I've seen yet, at least in my opinion. Ito continues to prove how great he is in this ruleset, and Watanabe is getting closer and closer to matching his abilities. I can't wait to see what happens in the eventual third match.
Rating: B+
Soma Watanabe/Minoru Tanaka vs. Takanori Ito/Tatsuhito Takaiwa
Tanaka signing with GLEAT might be the best news for the new promotion so far, he's been at it for close to thirty years and honestly hasn't lost a step. Takaiwa meanwhile has been doing it for about the same amount of time and probably never had a step to lose. This isn't meant as a slight however, his style of basic wrestling, lariats, and death valley bombs is one of the biggest proofs that sometimes simpler really is better. Both men are real good in this match, as Takaiwa is able to act as a great momentum killer against the dynamic team of Watanabe and Tanaka, and Tanaka is just fucking awesome, wrestling so smoothly for a man nearly 50. Watanabe and Ito also brought the heat as usual, with both men going very hard against each other from the get-go. Ito also is able to have some really fun exchanges with Tanaka, the two men having noticeably good chemistry. The ending came with Watanabe and Takaiwa beating the hell out of each other, with Watanabe at first taking the advantage before Ito ran in and hit his ridiculously beautiful backdrop on him. Takaiwa then hit him with a brainbuster and a gross lariat, but Watanabe kicked out, so Takaiwa finally dropped him with the death valley bomb for the win. This was a run-of-the-mill tag match between four really good to great wrestlers, so if you want to see some very enjoyable tag wrestling this is the match for you.
Rating: B+
Kaz Hayashi vs. Daijiro Matsui
Daijiro Matsui is a guy who I've been a fan of for a while, one of the last students of the UWFi dojo and a KINGDOM main-stay. He's also not had a pro wrestling match in five years and this was Hayashi's UWFi rules debut, so coming into this match while considering both those factors I was very excited if slightly worried. Luckily, I had nothing to worry about, because the flame grappler never loses his fire. Him and Hayashi's grappling the entire match was so rough and realistic, Matsui's ability being somewhat expected buy Hayashi being a pleasant surprise here. Hayashi was able to hit a great low kick to Matsui's ankle at one point, forcing him off balance and allowing Hayashi to successfully shoot for a takedown. Little details like that really make a match special. That's not to say this wasn't the Matsui show though. Even in this moment, immediately after Hayashi successfully did a takedown Matsui almost immediately took advantage on the ground. In fact, this would've been a total shut-out victory for Matsui if not for him violating DA RULEZ. At one point he had Hayashi in a perfect position and put in a heel hold, which the ref immediately broke up and gave him a yellow card and point loss for. I actually didn't know this was against the rules, so after writing this I'll go read the GLEAT rules online to make sure I don't get surprised like this again. Update: the GLEAT rules are not in english anywhere online so I had to just translate the pre-match screens using my google translate app on my phone. I also have already forgotten them, so I guess I'll just have to keep being surprised. Matsui actually benefitted from this slip-up, as it made him seem a lot more like a killer. Honestly though, with how he was throwing those kick and knees, he probably didn't need any more moments to prove that. Matsui eventually took the win by doing a back roll while holding a front necklock before transitioning into a beauty of a cross armbar. This was entirely to reintroduce the wrestling world to the flame grappler, but Hayashi perfectly hold his own and it resulted in a pretty fun slight squash match.
Rating: B+
Takanori Ito vs. Daijiro Matsui
This is the start of Volume 4, and is also the first match in a four man UWFi tournament which will take up the entire volume. The second I heard Matsui was getting involved with GLEAT this was the match I most looked forward to, so getting to see it happen so early is pretty awesome. And you know what? I couldn't have predicted how good this would be. The beginning grappling was absolutely phenomenal, both men sprawled like their lives depended on it and it felt like a shout-out to the classic U-System sprawling I love so much. Matsui is great as a slick asshole veteran, he almost puts in a heel hold again at one point but remembers that it's against the rules, instead settling for a sick knee lock. He spent a lot of the match forcing Ito to go by his pace, which has been Ito's whole thing so far so it was a great role reversal. After getting the points at 4-2, Matsui got possibly a little too confident and tried to shoot for a takedown on Ito when he had some time to recover. Ito, because he's the GLEAT shoot prodigy, decided "fuck that and fuck you", TAKAYAMA COUNTER KNEEING HIM. This gets him a knockdown on Matsui, and immediately upon Matsui getting back up he rushes back in and lays low kicks to Matsui's thigh to force another knockdown. At this point, it doesn't matter that Matsui has years of experience over him. Ito is in his zone, and all he needs is one good chance. He throws some sick knees and hits a beautiful German suplex, finally locking in a nasty single leg crab to get the tapout victory. Y'know what I said in the first match about that being the best UWFi rules match yet? Yeah, that's already changed.
Rating: B+
This is the second semi-final match in the UWFi tournament, and the GLEAT debut of Yu Iizuka, someone who I am unbelievably happy to see in GLEAT. A product of HEAT-UP, Iizuka is a total fucking Volk Han mark, using the twitter handle @VOLK_KID and going by the nickname "Lil Volk". However, he's somewhat earned this nickname through his quickly growing grappling abilities. Also, a little bit of trivia just for fun, Iizuka is the student of HEAT-UP's owner TAMURA, who himself is one of the U-File Camp boys (a group that includes Kotaro Nasu, Kazuki Okubo, and Masashi Takeda). Since U-File was the gym run by one Kiyoshi Tamura, it could be considered that the GLEAT president is kind of Iizuka's wrestling grandpa. Watanabe actually starts the grappling in this match, obviously wanting to maintain control in this match against the debuting Iizuka. He honestly does really well and really holds his ground, but it doesn't take long before Iizuka is able to smoothly turn Watanabe's advantages into his own. He shows his love for the Russian Wizard with some really complex and creative holds like a cutthroat side choke and a cross-legged knee crusher, along with the classic Volk wrist throws. Watanabe tries his best to take back the early control he had but all his attempts are fruitless, culminating in him throwing a high kick that gets easily caught by Iizuka, allowing him to roll under Watanabe and do a beauty of a release dragon suplex, following that up with a crossface chickenwing for the submission victory. This was a great showcase for Iizuka, and even in defeat Watanabe looked more than competent enough. He didn't lose because of a lack of skill, there's just no stopping Lil Volk.
Rating: B+
This is the finals of the UWFi tournament, and is also a match between my two favorite guys currently in GLEAT, so you know I was excited to watch this. This actually starts out with striking between the two, but both, for all their grappling ability, are also really good at that. Eventually it leads into Iizuka faking out a pump kick into a double leg attempt but Ito catches him and we're in for a fucking ground clinic. Iizuka's creativity really shines here with all the crazy holds he's able to get Ito in position for, and Ito repeatedly tries his best to shut Iizuka down. However, the emphasis is on tries, as Iizuka is able to force Ito to use three of his points on rope breaks before Ito is finally able to counter a head kick attempt with his leg sweep, locking on an achilles hold for Iizuka's first point loss of the match. Iizuka is able to do his cool leg catch roll under thing, pulling Ito into the middle of the ring and doing one of the coolest fucking submissions I've possibly ever seen. I literally cannot describe it, so here is a gif of it. Iizuka is a prodigy man. Ito is able to get to the ropes to escape this, but he's now on one point, meaning if he goes for the ropes again or takes a knockdown the match will end with Iizuka as the winner. Ito goes into full killing machine mode because of this, going nuts on Iizuka with slaps, kicks, and a disgusting series of clinch knees to the head, getting a knockdown on Iizuka that he only barely gets up from before losing by KO. Iizuka primal yells and goes to strike with Ito, but in the standing strike situation, Ito always had superiority, and throws some great kicks before doing his beautiful German suplex into a bodyscissors sleeper hold and get the submission victory. This match was such a great example of what both men can do, while also showing that both men have an absolutely bottomless well of potential. I don't think it was as good as the Matsui match, but the next time these two face off there's no way it won't be better.
Rating: B+
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