(Written by jom)
Kazuhiro Tamura vs. Alexander Otsuka
We're starting this show commemorating Minoru Tanaka's 20th anniversary in wrestling right by featuring two people with pasts deeply tied to Tanaka himself. While Tamura is of course a trainee of Kiyoshi Tamura in U-FILE CAMP, he also spent a lot of time training under former ARSION wrestler and U-FILE CAMP trainer Yumi Fukawa. While Fukawa was training him, she got married to Minoru Tanaka, leading to Kazuhiro Tamura receiving training from Tanaka, a dream situation for Tamura considering Tanaka was possibly his favorite wrestler. Otsuka meanwhile is someone Tanaka spent the entirety of his early career with, as both of them came up in PWFG before moving to Battlarts.
This ended up being a pretty fun little opener for the show. It started off with Tamura and Otsuka doing some alright grappling, before eventually breaking into a small chest slap exchange which led to Otsuka smacking the taste out of Tamura's mouth before smashing him with a shoot headbutt. Otsuka took over for a solid portion at this point and did some solid enough work, mostly just clubbing on Tamura and hitting stuff like a real hard european uppercut.
Tamura was eventually able to take the advantage with his really cool run-up corkscrew senton attack (basically just Jeff Hardy's "Whisper in the Wind"), and he started to rattle off some of his usual awesome offense, like some mean slaps, a nice slingblade, and a really good missile dropkick. There was a nice little struggle over whether Tamura would be able to put on the Minoru Special, before finally Tamura hit a really mean kick to Otsuka's arm and locked in Tanaka's eponymous move.
Otsuka was able to escape however, and soon after took back the advantage, hitting some of his own cool offense including his awesome giant swing, before finally planting Tamura with a really nice release tiger bomb to get the victory.
This didn't really do anything special but at the same time featured two very good wrestlers hitting some of their usually good stuff for about 5 minutes. Otsuka was cool as the dominant veteran, beating down on the smaller Tamura before Tamura was able to come back and hit some of his usual awesome offense. A very enjoyable way to start the show.
Rating: B-
Hikaru Shida & Tsubasa vs. Kana & Heat
Next up, we have Tanaka making his first appearance of the night, reviving his Heat persona from his days in NJPW and teaming with Kana to take on Tsubasa and Shida. Kana (WWE's Asuka) is of course an absolute killer at this point in her career (although she's very rarely not a killer at any point), and Shida is someone who I've seen very little of but I've heard she's at least pretty solid. Tsubasa is one of those guys that went to Mexico in the 90s to receive training in lucha libre, and he's been a very good wrestler at pretty much all points of his career, doing some great work in Osaka pro (both the original and the revived one running today).
Sadly, I actually think this underperformed compared to the opener, as well as considering the level of talent in the ring. The match started off well enough, with Heat and Tsubasa running through a nice fast-paced juniors exchange (ending with a double dropkick because of course it did). Kana and Shida tagged in and immediately started to hit each other pretty hard, with Shida throwing some nice boots and Kana responding with some hard kicks of her own. Eventually Shida and Kana got into a fun sequence where they kept throwing hip attacks at each other, and then when Heat tagged in he immediately threw a few of his own at Shida.
After this though, the match kinda lost steam. It's not like the actual work was bad or anything, it just felt like the energy in the match went away, and it never came back to the level it was in the early portion. Shida and Kana were definitely the better parts of the match here, with both throwing some mean strikes like Shida's gross running knees and Kana's brutal spinning backfists. Tsubasa and Heat also weren't bad, albeit Heat did very little after that early segment and Tsubasa wasn't very inspired, only really hitting a nice DDT at one point.
Eventually, Kana got the win for her team by countering a pinfall attempt after a Falcon Arrow from Shida into a cross armbar. There was very clearly some good stuff here, but the entirety of the match felt mostly by-the-numbers and some of the sequences were too preplanned-feeling for my tastes (I know that with this type of match that's the nature of the beast, but I still don't enjoy it). It didn't help that the crowd felt absolutely dead for most of this. Overall nothing bad happened here, but very little that was memorable happened either.
Rating: C+
Manabu Hara vs. Katsumi Usuda
While the last match ended up being disappointing, I feel almost certain in the fact that this one will meet expectations, with two of the most underrated Battlarts wrestlers facing off in a Battlarts rules match. I haven't talked about Usuda on the blog in over a year and that is a damn shame, as he's an absolute killer who works like a sleazy shoot style Fujiwara, throwing leg lift headbutts and locking in Fujiwara armbars while also busting out some crazy spinning backfists and kicks. He would actually retire only a year after this show too, facing off against none other than Minoru Tanaka in his final match. Hara meanwhile is someone that I've somehow never talked about here, which is insane considering I think he was the best pure shooter of all the 2nd Battlarts guys. He has a vibe that kinda feels like a mix of Daisuke Ikeda and, funny enough, Katsumi Usuda, blending together slick grappling with some really hard strikes and huge suplexes, all while possessing that kick-ass aura that Ikeda had in his prime. Even to this day Hara is one of the best shoot style guys in the world, and the fact he hasn't appeared in a place like GLEAT is a damn shame.
And wouldn't you know it, this fucking rocked! Both guys were able to really lay out some of their best stuff here and it resulted in a really damn good bati-bati match. The match started out with some really nice grappling, full of struggle and tenacity that really made it worthwhile rather than just being there to pad out the match. Very soon after that though, Usuda starts throwing some hard kicks, until Hara is able to catch one and absolutely floor him with a disgusting head kick. However, Usuda is able to get one back on him, as when he gets up and Hara tries to rush him in the corner, Usuda responds with his own head kick. This immediately sets the stage of the match, with Hara utilizing his greater athleticism and tenacity to take control, while Usuda uses his veteran instincts and craftiness to try and keep on top of his younger opponent.
On that note, there was a lot that happened here, so I'm not going to go play-by-play, but instead I'll just talk about individual performances. Hara was pretty great as the monster shooter he always is, working very well while grappling and making sure to lay in all his strikes. Probably his best work all match were his counters though, as he was able to pull out some awesome stuff like a beautiful flying armbar or a huge german suplex. He was always one step ahead of Usuda it seemed, reading his movements and responding with appropriate violence.
Honestly though, Usuda was the better man here.
Usuda was really embracing that Fujiwara-level evilness in him throughout this match, constantly lighting up Hara with hard strikes and grinding him down as much as he possibly could. At one point, Hara had ahold of his arm and was trying to put in a double wristlock, so Usuda responded by just grinding his elbow into the side of Hara's head. There was also this really sick moment when Usuda was mounted on Hara's back and just started wailing on him with knees, elbows, and a cracking headbutt, before getting up and punt kicking him to hell. While Hara was able to match Usuda when it came to the force behind his moves, Usuda brought a level of cruelty that Hara couldn't match.
The end was a pretty perfect summation of the match's whole story. Usuda started to beam Hara with head kicks until Hara was able to catch one and try to lock in an ankle hold. However, Usuda just yanked his ankle out of Hara's grasp, and blasted him with two more head kicks to get the knockout victory.
Maybe I'm just a sucker for bati-bati (I am), but I really dug this match a lot. There were some notable moments of not much going on, with both guys hesitating to engage and just trying to find a moment to strike rather than actually striking, but when they actually did start to engage, it was always real high quality stuff. The best match on the show so far, and a wonderful performance from two of the best at the bati-bati style of wrestling.
Rating: A-
Tsubo Genjin vs. Antonio Koinoki
I really do have to appreciate Tanaka's choice to follow up such a violent and intense fight with a light-hearted comedy match. That man knows how to pace a card. Koinoki is of course really good, almost undoubtedly the best worker to come out of WGWF entirely. Genjin is a different story though. I've actually seen very few Tsubo Genjin matches myself, but I have friends that have seen a lot more and seem to despise him. It's especially weird to hear about that since in my opinion, Genjin's work as Hiroyoshi Kotsubo in places like WYF, MUGA, and Battlarts is actually pretty solid, but again, I've heard very few good things about his comedy work, so I'm coming into this with mixed expectations.
Honestly, this wasn't some great match or anything, but for what it was, it was fine. Not much to talk about since this went 5 minutes and didn't feature anything super interesting. Koinoki was fun as always here just busting out Inoki tribute stuff like a great indian deathlock, a very good diving knee drop, and a cool cobra twist. Genjin actually had a few nice moments too, like throwing some absolutely crazy chops that bruised up Koinoki's chest pretty nicely, as well as one point when he acted like he was going to throw Koinoki at a group of fans and then just didn't. That was probably the funniest part of the match solely because the fans were freaking out about it.
Koinoki ended up getting the win in the end with a great enzuigiri into a manjigatame. I could probably complain about some of the stuff that happened, like moments where you could tell the two were absolutely working together to do spots, but really this match never made me feel anything strong enough to either complain or highly praise. It was a match that happened, and it was never very good nor very bad.
Rating: C
HUB & Kazuki Hashimoto vs. Masked Kocho & Ryoji Sai
In the semi-main of the show, we've got a pretty stacked tag match between four high level juniors guys. HUB is someone I haven't talked about since the Maruyama produce I reviewed, but he's just a generally great slick high flyer. Hashimoto meanwhile is a total beast, throwing crazy hard strikes including some truly sickening kicks. Ryoji Sai is also in that category of a shitkicker and has had some really good performances in Z1. Finally, Masked Kocho is making his debut in this match, however based on the body type and the specific execution of certain moves, I'm almost 100% sure this is just Shinobu from 666. I'm fine with that though since Shinobu absolutely rocks, he's a great suicidal high flyer who can throw a mean lariat along with having a killer shooting star press. It's also the first time I've talked about Shinobu since the first post I ever made on the blog, and it's been a long time coming.
This was a solid enough match, nothing crazy but featuring some pretty cool stuff. HUB and Hashimoto were pretty damn good when in control, as both guys are very adept at working on top and really crushing opposition, and they were able to really beat the hell out of Kocho. Hashimoto laid into him with some stiff forearms and kicks, including one to the back which let out an unreasonably loud smack. He didn't do much outside of just hitting Kocho, but I wouldn't really ask much else out of him anyways. HUB meanwhile was even better in control though, doing some great work like hitting a really gross dropkick to the back of Kocho's head, or locking in a crazy hold where he had one of Kocho's arms and one of his legs trapped while also stretching the other leg over his shoulder like a stretch muffler. HUB also let loose some real mean hits with the tail on the back of his mask, which is a very legally grey maneuver and honestly probably shouldn't be allowed but it also makes a loud sound so it appeals to my caveman brain greatly.
On the opposing side, Ryoji Sai was really the only drawback of this whole match. He had a few good moments like coming in to break up a submission by kicking Kazuki Hashimoto really damn hard, or hitting a step-up kick to Hashimoto that was also really hard, but for the most part just slowed the momentum of the match down to a noticeable degree and was more interested in doing monotonous strike exchange type wrestling. Kocho luckily carried the team on his back though, as he rocked here. He bust out some awesome stuff like a great hurricanrana and his always insane Asai moonsault, and just in general was able to do so much great high energy offense, especially when working with like-minded wrestler HUB.
Eventually, Kocho won the match for his team with a beautiful shooting star press. While I wasn't huge on everything that happened here (especially the stuff involving Sai), I thought this was pretty damn good for the most part, and Kocho and HUB especially put in some great performances. I'll definitely be looking out to see if HUB and Shinobu have done anything together since this match.
Rating: B
Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Minoru Tanaka
We've finally arrived at the show's main event. This is actually a first-time singles encounter between Tanaka and Sekimoto, two living legends of the Japanese wrestling scene. If you're reading this blog, you almost definitely know about both guys, so I'm not going to bore you with a long preamble, and instead I'll just get straight into the match.
Of course this was very good stuff. Early on Tanaka and Sekimoto actually played the match out pretty evenly with Tanaka holding his own against Sekimoto in grappling and actually smartly avoiding any power-for-power stuff. Once that did begin he was absolutely outmatched, and instead took to kicking Sekimoto as hard as he could to keep the match on equal footing. However, Sekimoto's power isn't something you can just work through easily, and pretty soon Sekimoto was in control of the match. Probably the only negative portion of the match followed this, as Sekimoto slowly worked over Tanaka with some hard chops and power stuff like a boston crab. I really just wasn't super interested in what was going on here, as while Tanaka did a great job selling the pain being inflicted, I just felt like the action was so lethargic that it was taking me out of the match. It didn't help that Sekimoto also seemed to want to instigate strike exchanges way more than needed (strike exchanges in general have absolutely fallen out of favor with me after seeing so god damn many, so at this point I only really get into them if the people doing them are throwing strikes really stiffly).
However, once Tanaka was able to finally take some level of control back, this match got really fucking good. Tanaka's actual comeback absolutely ruled, with him trying to hit a dropkick as Sekimoto rebounded but Sekimoto caught the ropes, but once Sekimoto hit the ropes again Tanaka rolled forward and jumped up to land the dropkick. Dropkicks immediately became Tanaka's bread and butter here, as he blasted Sekimoto with a ton of them, like a gross one in the corner, a great diving one off the middle rope, and one right to the face that sent Sekimoto tumbling.
Soon after Sekimoto was able to fully get back onto equal footing, and this entered into the back and forth bomb trading you would expect this match to. While this type of wrestling isn't my favorite, both guys were absolutely pulling off some great stuff, like Tanaka's horrific diving foot stomp, or Sekimoto's huge corner lariat. Sekimoto completely redeemed himself for the boring work he did earlier too, as he turned up the pace by a lot and started going crazy with tons of awesome stuff, including one particularly great enzuigiri into a mean brainbuster.
The finish came soon after, as Sekimoto destroyed Tanaka with a brutal lariat and followed it up with the deadlift german suplex for the win. I think that the early portion with Sekimoto in control really did hurt this match a good deal, and if that portion had been worked better this would've probably been a flat-out great match. However, once Tanaka made his comeback, this was just awesome work from both guys for the remaining duration. Sekimoto turned into the hardass bruiser hoss we all love him as, and Tanaka pulled out all the stops to try and overcome the monster in front of him. Overall, this was a really good match, and a good way to end the show.
Rating: B+