Comprehensive Rikiya Fudo/Super Rider #3 (DDT 11/20/1999)

                    (Written by jom)

    For the first time, two Comprehensives in one! The matches I'm reviewing today are all from the 11/20/1999 DDT show, which featured a one-night round robin trios tournament. Rider and Fudo (under his Yusaku name) both participated in the tournament in the B block, so that means we got 3 matches featuring them from this show, as well as the only recorded interactions between Rider and Fudo, so I'm very excited to see how those pan out.

Yusaku, Daisaku, & Yuki Nishino vs. Kazunori Yoshida, Koichiro Kimura, & Takao Iwasaki

    Starting off this special edition of comprehensive is the Shimoda bros, and they're teaming with Yuki Nishino, a former SPWF guy who throws awesome headbutts and moves at a really violent pace. Yoshida is another guy I've been a big fan of, as is Kimura. I've honestly never seen Iwasaki before this match, but the fact he was put on a team with Yoshida and Kimura makes me think he's probably solid enough.

    This was pretty sweet and extremely heated. Nishino was solid here, doing some nice grappling and hitting a few bombs like one crazy backdrop suplex on Yoshida. Daisaku was also pretty good, laying in some kicks and knees with real force and doing some cool scrappy work against Kimura and Iwasaki. Yusaku was definitely the best part of his team though, as he was just a beast here. He started the match by plowing through Yoshida with a lariat, and he kept that energy the entire time he was in the ring, with some big lariats and headbutts. He also hit some awesome bombs like this great sit-out spinebuster:

    For the other team in the match, everyone involved ended up having a good showing. Iwasaki was alright here, not really doing anything crazy but throwing some cool kicks. Yoshida also was a little more reserved than I've usually seen him, but he still busted out some great stuff like an awesome pop-up dropkick. Kimura was the most notable member of the team, purely through the level of violence he inflicted on the Shimoda bros, especially Yusaku. Honestly, with how hard he was hitting them and how little he was getting hit himself, I think that he might've been genuinely shooting on Yusaku. He doesn't have the greatest reputation for taking care of other wrestlers, so it wouldn't be entirely out of character. At bare minimum though, it made for some real sick stuff, like the combo seen below where Kimura just beat the dogshit out of Yusaku before putting on a really mean standing armbar.

    Overall, this had some pretty crazy sections, but as a whole felt somewhat disjointed. Still, those moments it did have were really good, so if you are just interested in seeing guys do cool shit to each other without the need for clean pacing and structure, you'd probably be pretty into this match.

Rating: B-

Super Rider, Asian Cougar, & Thanomsak Toba vs. Kazunori Yoshida, Koichiro Kimura, & Takao Iwasaki

    Next up we have the Yoshida/Kimura/Iwasaki team from the previous match taking on the sleaze legends team of Rider, Cougar, and Toba. I've of course talked at length about how great Rider is, and I just talked in the most recent post before this about how awesome Cougar is. Toba is someone I've somehow not covered until now, but he's maybe one of my favorite martial artist type wrestlers of all time. He throws some extremely violent punches and kicks, with his spinning backfist being maybe the greatest of all time.

    This match ended up being pretty awesome! Cougar was cool busting out some of his usual big spots like the corner kneel kick into slingshot leg drop, and he also got to hit some stuff I have rarely seen from him, including a crazy tope over the corner. He wasn't part of the match as much as Rider or Toba, but he made his contributions felt for the parts he was in. Toba was a god damn menace here, throwing his trademark horrific strikes, including a lightning-quick flurry of punches that he threw at all three of his opponents (with his sequence against Yoshida gif'd below). He also threw some genuinely scary kicks at Kimura, including one that hit Kimura's jaw with one of the loudest cracks I've heard in a while. Rider, for his part, was also really cool here, doing some phenomenal grappling with Kimura and laying in a few hard strikes like some brutal headbutts on Iwasaki. He even had a few fun moments, like doing a spot where he kept fucking up a scoop slam because he's more of a fighter than a wrestler, eventually leading to the payoff of him actually doing one correctly, with the crowd popping big for it.

    All three guys on the other side of the ring more than held up their end of the match too. Kimura was great in this one, doing some really solid grappling with Rider and hitting some big bombs like an awesome butterfly suplex into an armbar, or the great transition into a fujiwara armbar seen below. He definitely wasn't working with the level of hate he had in the previous match, but he made up for that with some overall extremely solid mat work. Iwasaki was much better here than he was in the last match, pretty much being in a sink-or-swim situation with Toba and responding by throwing some strong kicks and pulling out big holds, like a stiff side headlock. Yoshida was probably the best part of the match for his team though, as he got to hit a ton of awesome stuff even with the roof of the building being so low. He hit a great springboard dropkick, an awesome suicide dive, and a crazy springboard arm drag which he really shouldn't have been able to pull off considering how little space he had to do it.

    This was better than the last match I went over, albeit not by a ton. I think all six men put in a really solid performance, but the match never really brought itself up to being great or anything like that. As it stands though, this was still a really enjoyable match.

Rating: B

Super Rider, Asian Cougar, & Thanomsak Toba vs. Yusaku, Daisaku, & Yuki Nishino

    Finally, we have arrived to the match I was most excited for going into this. Not only does this have the only known interactions between Rikiya Fudo and Super Rider, but it also features 4 other extremely awesome wrestlers as part of the match. This actually takes place before the match I just reviewed, but considering the importance of this match in terms of the blog, I'm reviewing it last.

    ...having said that, let's rip the bandaid off now: Yusaku didn't enter this match once. My best guess is that the dude was still pretty fucked up from the beating he got from Kimura, leading to him only entering the ring at the end to do a little bit of brawling with Toba during the finish. It fucking sucks to see that Yusaku and Rider seemingly never actually had any interactions in their careers after all, but at least this match still ruled very hard. Nishino is really damn great in this match compared to the last one he was in. While he had a solid performance there, he was fighting like his life was on the line in this match, throwing some gnarly headbutts including one to Cougar that sent him flying off the apron and into the crowd. Daisaku rocked even harder than him, busting out some awesome grappling against Rider such as when he countered Rider's triangle choke into a kneebar. He also did some great strikes and combos, like the flurry of high kicks he threw at Toba, as well as this great combo:

    Asian Cougar was pretty awesome here (it's very rare for him to not be at least awesome). He pretty much just hit the classics, but not only do the Asian Cougar classics rule, he also hit them with a lot of urgency. He did the slingshot leg drops (both inside and outside the ring), he hit his awesome running corner kneel kick, etc. Toba was really good too, laying in some hard strikes on Daisaku like a combo that led into a pretty disgusting kick straight to Daisaku's face. The best part of the match to me though was Super Rider, who had a truly awesome performance. He hit some mean strikes, such as a pinpoint solebutt to Nishino's jaw, as well as some stiff mounted punches to Daisaku. He pulled off some great grappling, like a great transition into an armbar from a wristlock and the gif seen below of him countering a snapmare perfectly into a kneebar. He even bust out some high spots, like a crazy suicide dive he hit on Nishino, as well as the always awsome rider kick.

    Overall, I really enjoyed the work we got in this match. It was honestly pretty short (a little over 7 minutes long) , and the fact that Yusaku did literally nothing probably damaged the rating enough to guarantee it wasn't gonna get into the A-grade range, but it was still a really sweet six man tag and everyone who participated put on a really fun performance.

Rating: B+

NEW NOW 04/04/1999

                  (Written by jom)

Sachie Nishibori & Emi Motokawa vs. Keiko Aono & Yasha Kurenai

    Being entirely honest here, I have significantly less knowledge about these four than I really should. Nishibori and Motokawa (the future Emi Sakura) are IWA Japan wrestlers who worked frequently in other promotions and have been pretty damn solid in the small amount of their work I've seen from IWA Japan. Yasha Kurenai is someone I've only seen pictures and clips of but she looks absolutely beast, with a really sweet yankee gimmick which is honestly just a gimmick I love in general. And Aono... I've never seen before. I've definitely at least seen her name but cannot for the life of me remember if I've ever seen her wrestle.

    Wouldn't you know it, this was pretty awesome! Genuinely, this was a lot of fun with all four involved really bringing it and starting the show off right. Nishibori was doing some pretty cool stuff, hitting a great hurricanrana and a crazy dive, as well as pulling off some cool counters. Motokawa was awesome here too, moreso than Nishibori, being absolutely full of energy and going as fast as possible the entire match. Her first contribution to the match was repeatedly dropkicking Aono into oblivion so it was pretty obvious she was gonna pull off a top level performance. The two of them even had a few solid moments of teamwork, especially this crazy assisted flipping senton onto Kurenai:

    Aono was solid for the small amount of stuff I got to see her do. She did some fun power moves like her really good shoulder tackles, and at one point caught a Nishibori crossbody to hit a real nice powerslam. Kurenai was my favorite part of the match though, just completely wrecking Motokawa and especially Nishibori. She pulled off some cool stuff, like a springboard leg drop and the awesome uranage/exploder type move shown below (not really sure what to call it considering the landing).

    Overall, this rocked pretty well for the amount of it that we saw. SamuraiTV ended up clipping out over half the match which really does suck considering what we got was awesome, but I've definitely become more interested in checking out the work of all four women after this.

Rating: B

Yusaku & Daisaku vs. Yuichi Taniguchi & Sanshiro Takagi

    There's really not an introduction needed for either of the Shimoda twins (I've already covered them both enough in Yusaku/Rikiya Fudo's Comprehensive series). Taniguchi is a guy who I've never been super high on but he's almost always put in at least a serviceable performance. Takagi is based as hell. I love the resident Stone Cold cosplayer in Japan and especially during this stage in his career he was pretty great, doing some solid brawler type stuff while starting to really integrate Austinisms into his work. Sadly all the entrances were cut so no "FIREEEEEE" but it's not the end of the world.

    Once again, this was really damn good! Two for two so far on this show. Taniguchi really surprised me with how well he did here, really using his mass to pulverize the Shimoda twins with crushing corner and running splashes. He also at one point hit a genuinely great northern lights suplex which I was decidedly not expecting from someone of Taniguchi's size. Takagi was also great here, constantly turning up the heat when he was in the ring by just fighting with whoever he was there with. He had some awesome moves like his DDTs, but probably the best moment he had all match was when he came in and just started shooting on shooter Daisaku for no particular reason. Truly, Takagi is a beast.

    Yusaku, similar to Aono, was a solid power wrestler, although honestly he didn't do a ton of impressive stuff here. He hit a cool back elbow and a vader bomb, but for the most part was just fine. Daisaku on the other hand was off the fucking bean. He was honestly pretty similar to Masashi Aoyagi, coming in and popping off some hard strike combos, really making himself feel like such a threat. Probably the best of these combos came towards the end, when he hit a beauty of an axe kick before smashing Takagi's temple with a gamengiri.

    Another really good match for this show so far, even better than the last one. I think that this never really entered into enough of a next gear to be called "great", but this wasn't a match ever intended to be anything like that. It accomplished exactly what it was meant to as a lower midcard match featuring some real shitkickers, and if you're a fan of any of these guys you'd probably enjoy this.

Rating: B+

Azumi Hyuga & Ran YuYu vs. Carlos Amano & Kana Mizaki

    Basically take what I said about the opening match and increase it tenfold. I have no watching experience with anyone in here besides Carlos Amano (although I recognize all of their names). Now, having said that, I think that Amano might be a top 100 wrestler ever from the amount of work I've seen from her. She throws hard headbutts, has some insane grappling ability, and does the greatest armbar of all time, so going into this I'm at least hoping she gets to pull do two out of three of these things.

    Another pretty solid match, albeit a step below the last two. Hyuga and YuYu both did pretty good, especially YuYu. She hit some pretty awesome samoan drops, especially a really sweet one off the top rope. Hyuga hit some cool stuff of her own, such as a nice springboard dropkick and this beauty of a butterfly backbreaker:

    Mizaki and Amano both put in some pretty good performances as well. Mizaki hit a ton of sentons which I thought was cool, and also it a solid tornado DDT. Amano was absolutely the best part of the match, pulling out some real nice grappling and hitting a ton of different armbars (which made up for the complete lack of headbutts). This culminated in her hitting genuinely an extremely awesome doomsday armbar, shown below.

    While I think this match had a solid handful of cool moments, it definitely felt slightly disjointed and move-spammy. It didn't help that the way the pace went made it feel like it never really built to the finishing stretch, just going at the same tempo for the majority of the match. That said, I still think this was pretty good and I enjoyed it overall.

Rating: B

Great Takeru, Keisuke Yamada, & Keizo Matsuda vs. Shigeo Kato, Onryo, & Shinigami

    IWA Japan vs. Wrestle Yume Factory~! Starting to think Kendo Nagasaki was somehow talking to me when booking this show because this is exactly the type of match I would book if I could. Love all six of these guys, with Takeru being an awesome suicidal high-flyer, Yamada and Matsuda both being hardass bruisers, Kato being a solid heel technican, Onryo being a sleek juniors worker, and Shinigami being like if Undertaker was a member of the Von Erich family. Basically, I already was in love with this match before it even happened.

    ...And that's about as much love as it ended up getting. It pains me to say this but this match just wasn't very good. The opening of it was pretty hot with the teams brawling before leading into a solid "good guys stand tall" moment, but after that the match turned into one giant extended heat segment with very few breaks. Nothing these guys did was bad per se but it was more that they just did nothing at all. Probably the best guy in the whole match was Shinigami, who not only got to act cocky as hell and do a bunch of shittalking, but also did probably some of the most interesting stuff in terms of moves, with the best one being this pretty awesome double choke into a belly to belly suplex:

    Now, maybe this match was better than it seems. Once again, this match was the victim of some extreme clipping, with the 22 minute match being cut down to roughly 10 minutes. However, considering what we do have, I have a feeling that it wasn't, and that makes me very sad. This is probably a C- but my disappointment weighs heavy.

Rating: D+

Barbed Wire Boards Deathmatch: Tarzan Goto & Freddie Krueger vs. Shoji Nakamaki & Mitsunobu Kikuzawa

    Another match that, on paper, seems really fun. Jun Saida is someone I've never heard of before wearing a weird red mask, wrestledata says that Nakamaki teamed with Kikuzawa on this show so maybe that's his real identity but no sure way to know (EDIT: the mask came off within 3 minutes of the match, it is in fact Kikuzawa). Krueger (the IWA Japan one portrayed by Doug Gilbert) is alright, albeit he only really does good when he's being carried by someone better. However, Nakamaki and Goto are absolutely better enough wrestlers to carry if need be, with Nakamaki being a really fun hard hitting deathmatch brawler and Goto being a top 50 wrestler of all time in my own eyes. To be honest though, my expectations are out the window after that last match and I'm just kinda hoping this ends up being good.

    It's a good thing I did temper those expectations because this was totally alright. Tarzan Goto was by far the best part of the match (I would've been shocked if he wasn't), just being generally very evil and doing things like his signature bottle break spot, throwing people into the wire, and letting out an evil laugh. The best thing he did all match was the powerbomb shown below, where Kikuzawa got all sorts of wrapped up in the wire. Outside of Goto though, everyone else didn't really do much. Krueger had a couple moments of being in control on his own and they were very nothing, Kikuzawa was the whipping boy for the most part (although he did get to hit one very cool running senton onto Krueger in the wire), and Nakamaki just didn't really do anything worthwhile outside of some pretty solid brawling with Goto.

    While I think this match had a solid handful of cool moments, it definitely felt slightly disjointed and move-spammy. It didn't help that the way the pace went made it feel like it never really built to the finishing stretch, just going at the same tempo for the majority of the match. That said, I still think this was pretty good and I enjoyed it overall.

Rating: C+

Sayuri Okino & Eagle Sawai vs. Shinobu Kandori & Junko Yagi

    Once again, I know nobody hear besides one person. I've seen limited amounts of Kandori but she's always come off amazingly so I was looking forward to this match just to see more from her.

    And we are back with a genuinely good match! This was a really solid old school face/heel tag match, with Sawai and Okino constantly running interference (along with a 2nd they had with them that was in the ring for like 90% of the match) and using weapons, while Kandori and Yagi having to try and fend them off. Sawai was pretty solid here, doing some alright body blocks and being a generally imposing force but she never really did anything that wow'd me. Okino was really good as a less imposing, more annoying heel, just wailing on Kandori and Yagi with weapons like a pink kendo stick and a chain. She had a few moves she got in that were awesome too, like this sweet dropkick:

    Yagi was alright, although she didn't do much. Her main existence in the match was to get beaten up by the heels and to constantly get inches away from the tag, only to get cut off at the last second, leading to Kandori's eventual hot tag. And man, Kandori fucking rocked in this match. She was a total house of fire any time she got involved, moving with such ferocity and busting out some amazing counters like the one into an armbar show below. Her work in the finish was absolutely amazing too, with her repeatedly going for the kill on Okino while Sawai and the 2nd tried their damndest to stop her for finishing Okino off.

    Overall, this was a blast of a match. I think the only thing holding it back from greatness was just how much the 2nd was involved. If they had been a little more creative on how they got her in the match so that the ref didn't look like the biggest idiot on the planet I think this would've been a shoe-in A-, but the score it ended up with is still absolutely respectable.

Rating: B+

Shigeo Okumura, Nobutaka Araya, & Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Kendo Nagasaki, Genichiro Tenryu, & Masaaki Mochizuki

    The main event of the show is here and what a clusterfuck on paper. You've got a solid all-rounder, an agile hoss, an old stiff grappler, a violent brawler, a total force of nature, and a karateka. Pretty much the perfect storm for a crazy main event tag match.

    Yeah, this match fucking rocked. It ended up being the absolutely insane brawl I was hoping for, if not even more so than I could've dreamed. I can't even begin to go over everyone's performance, genuinely not a single person wasted their spot. Of course, anything involving Fujiwara or Tenryu was money, especially when they were together in the ring. This is a few years removed from the genuine all-time classic singles match they had in WAR, and the heat from that match completely carried over because these guys tried to kill each other as much as possible.

    Nagasaki also had some awesome exchanges with Fujiwara, especially when the two just started shoot headbutting each other with reckless abandon. He was also part of maybe my favorite visual of the whole match, as when it turned into an all-out brawl Fujiwara and Tenryu were fighting in the ring, but in the background you could see Nagasaki absolutely mauling Okumura. Mochizuki did an awesome job hitting a bunch of badass karate stuff including a brutal head kick into a springboard dropkick. Araya and Okumura both were really damn good too, acting as some awesome young bruisers backing up old man Fujiwara when he needed it and just beating the dogshit outta whoever they were in the ring with.

    This was just such an amazing match. Violent, chaotic, a total shot to the heart compared to everything else leading up to it. This is the type of match that walks in, punches you in the nose, and walks out like nothing happened. Truly something special.

Rating: A

Comprehensive Rikiya Fudo #2

              (Written by jom)

Yusaku & Koki Kitahara vs. Daisaku & Tomohiro Ishii (CAPTURE International 05/30/2000)

    Starting us off is one of the very few publicly available CAPTURE matches from before the 2022 broadcasts started. Besides this match, another on the CAPTURE channel, and three TV broadcasts from 2002-2003, there's absolutely nothing in full online. I guess we do have to thank Koki for gracing us with this match at least, because on paper, this sounds phenomenal. You have the Shimoda brothers facing off in their early shooter days, Ishii fully embracing Tenryuism and the CAPTURE ideology before Choshu ruined him, and of course, the god of CAPTURE himself, Koki fucking Kitahara. Also, Yusaku is wearing matching gear with Kitahara, which is just so powerful.

    Yusaku was definitely tied for the best part of this match with Ishii. He came in and did a ton of the same stuff he does today, but with less of a domineering force behind it and more youthful enthusiasm to everything. He threw the same types of headbutts, forearms, and lariats that he hit in CAPTURE just a few months ago, but they all came off as much more energetic rather than powerful, which definitely still works and fit with him at this point considering he was a young rookie wrestler.

    As said when talking about Yusaku, Ishii was absolutely tied with him as the best guy here. He came in with a lot of hate (the appropriate way to enter a match for CAPTURE), throwing a ton of closed fist punches and hard kicks, all while coming off as having little to no respect for neither Yusaku nor Kitahara. His punches especially were harrowing, as I'm 99% sure he held back nothing when just destroying the face of Yusaku.

    Daisaku was also pretty damn good throughout, throwing some hard strikes and especially going in with a few stiff knees. I feel like while he didn't do a ton of memorable stuff, what he did do was really well executed and he deserves praise for that. Kitahara shockingly was the weakest link. He wasn't really a factor until half the match had gone by, and the stuff he did just wasn't as good as what the other three did. I do wanna shout out the pretty awesome powerbomb he did to Ishii onto Daisaku, definitely was not expecting to see that but it made for a memorable moment near the end of the match.

    I think that overall, this match rocked a good bit, but also never really got to a point where I would call it great. It was a little disjointed overall and it never felt like it hit a 2nd gear for me, but that 1st gear it stayed in was pretty damn brutal and made for a fun watch. Also, after the match, Ishii and Kitahara get into a pull-apart brawl and Fugofugo Yumeji (who came out to try and break it up) gets hit with a stray spinning sole kick from Kitahara, which does in my eyes bump this up a grade.

Rating: B

Rikiya Fudo & Hirotaka Yokoi vs. Kazushi Miyamoto & Tomoaki Honma (Kings Road 05/26/2006)

    This match is from the only Kings Road show not broadcast on Samurai! TV. Originally this whole show was thought to be completely unattainable, but thanks to Miyamoto and his absolutely awesome YouTube channel, we are finally able to watch at least a handheld the main event. There's bound to be more matches in this series from the channel considering Fudo and Miyamoto are seemingly good friends and Fudo has worked a shit ton for Miyamoto and his Kazushigumi fed. Plus, Miyamoto just barely missed out on his own Comprehensive, so you know he's got the jom seal of approval and you should definitely subscribe to his channel if you haven't already. 

    I also do want to say before anything else that anything said in reference to Honma here is referring to him as a wrestler and not as a person. I don't know as much as I probably should about the accusations that have been put against him, and I've heard other talks of his less than favorable character outside the ring not connected to the abuse allegations by his ex-wife. As far as I'm concerned, there's a solid chance Honma is a genuinely bad person and that shouldn't be covered up just because of his abilities in the ring. I'll probably go more into detail about my opinions on "separating art from the artist" whenever I eventually review an Apache Pro show (hell, I might even do a larger write-up about it because I think there's a lot to say), but in short anything said positively about him here is in reference to the isolated performance he did in this match, and not any sort of advocation for him to continue to wrestle today.

    This was a very different tag match from the one we just covered, as while that one was based around a clear tone of brutality, this one had a lot of ebbs and flows in pacing that made it much more fleshed out. It somewhat toed the line between being a Strong BJ style beef-off with hard stiff strikes (particularly lariats) and impactful slams, and a more traditional old-school tag match with an almost house show flavor to it.

    Turmeric Storm were in prime form here. Honma was very solid as he usually was at this point, doing everything with a lot of hardness and just generally being a really cohesive wrestler. Miyamoto was definitely on a much higher level than him here though. This was Miyamoto's time in the sun, working as the ace for a solidly bankrolled promotion that was on TV for every one of their shows besides this one, so of course he brought it all. He came off as the next coming of Tenryu in a lot of ways, doing a lot of similar movements and selling and even popping off some Tenryu moves like the face kicks. That's not to say he was only hitting tribute moves, as he definitely was proving that his own wrestling was just as good as the wrestling he was paying homage too, best seen here in this awesome sequence with both opponents:

    Hirotaka Yokoi also put in a pretty awesome performance, busting out hard kicks and punches and doing some great MMA grappling to contrast hard with everyone else in this match having a lariat-off. He was a really great outsider to the beefy bruisers and had some great moments throughout.

    However, of course, Rikiya Fudo put in a star-making performance as always. He had amazing chemistry with both guys but particularly with Miyamoto, having some real scrappy fights filled with stiff forearms and Vader hammers aplenty. He also got to do some genuinely shocking big match style moves towards the end, hitting a particularly fucked up combination on Miyamoto that had me rewind at least 10 times to watch it over and over again. The most notable move in this match however would come in the latter half when Fudo was in the ring with Honma. Honma gets thrown into the corner and...

    In one stiff as fuck lariat by Fudo, Honma's throat is crushed and his voice is forever fucked. That's right, this match is the match where Honma got his now trademark scratchy voice, courtesy of a Fudo corner lariat. Knowing what we know now about Honma, there's a certain level of catharsis to seeing this.

    The match overall was amazing. Everyone involved played their part to perfection and it resulted in a real gem of a match that we cannot thank Miyamoto enough for making public. Our boy Fudo was wrestling at top level here, Miyamoto was working at an equal or even higher level than Fudo, and Yokoi and Honma held their own in a match with those two behemoths. Go out of your way to see this if you can put up with Honma being in it, because it was just fucking awesome.

Rating: A-

Rikiya Fudo vs. Daisuke Kanehira (HEAT-UP! 06/19/2020)

    Once again, we arrive at the 2020s for another of Fudo's more recent matches. This time he's taking on Kanehira in the HEAT-UP! dojo, wrestling in front of approximately zero fans as the pandemic was currently in full-swing when this match happened.

    The lack of fans didn't stop either of these guys from going at 100% though, because they fucking killed each other here in a way that I honestly can't begin to describe properly. Kanehira was just great here, throwing some sickening chops and knees, holding his own against the larger, more dangerous Fudo. He at one point absolutely destroyed Fudo with this sickening combo, shown below:

    Fudo meanwhile was in full Vader mode, doing some disgusting Vader hammers and at one point even doing his own violence party using Vader hammers and chops. He also hit his horrifying shotgun kick, which I honestly believe is the best execution of said move I might have ever seen.

    Overall, this match just ruled sooooooo much. I wish my review of it could be longer and more thought-out but this is the type of match that has to be seen to be truly understood. It's just total violence from two guys that obviously came into this match planning to dish some out. For my money, one of the best matches of 2020 and a testament to just how transcendent of a wrestler Rikiya Fudo is. 

Rating: A

Comprehensive Rikiya Fudo #1

             (Written by jom)

Rikiya Fudo & Daisaku Shimoda vs. Shuji Ishikawa & Keita Yano (WMF 06/28/2008)

    On paper, this match sounded amazing. Two of my favorite wrestlers in Fudo and Yano getting to face off, with based big dawg and the always reliable Daisaku being there to add their own contributions to the match. It's kinda unfair to them to try and act like they're supporting characters, but personally it was hard at first to not do that considering just how amped up I got at the prospect of Fudo/Yano interactions. Luckily, every single person in this match put in such a great performance that it holds its own as not only a match with great Fudo/Yano interactions, but also just a great match in general.

    Daisaku was really awesome here as a hardass sleazy crowbar shooter, throwing some mean mid kicks and a nice lariat. He also hits Yano with multiple sick piledrivers, really going nuts with targeting Yano's neck all throughout the match. Shuji Ishikawa was also really good, acting as the hot tag for Yano and bringing a lot of fire during his times in the ring. He was still not all the way there in terms of being THE big dawg but he was getting pretty close, throwing his always gross knees and just generally being really damn good.

    The main story of the match, however, was pretty much everything Fudo and Yano were doing. Yano was in great form here, still only just starting to introduce his more odd wrestling tropes but executing basically everything to perfection (save for one pretty bad fuck-up near the end but he recovered immediately like the GOAT he is). He was slick in his grappling and he threw some European uppercuts like his life was on the line. He even got to hit his absolutely awesome springboard dropkick to Daisaku, and it might've been the best one I've ever seen him do.

    Fudo, meanwhile, was by far the best part of this match. He was awesome squaring off against fellow beast Shuji, throwing down with real aggression and even hitting a crazy powerslam on the giant. He also did some really good stuff with his brother, like a sick total elimination type move. His best stuff was absolutely against Yano though, as he got to absolutely destroy him throughout. He treated Yano like a small child, just throwing him around with the greatest of ease and obliterating him with chops and Vader hammers. The brainbuster he hit on Yano was the best one I've ever seen him do, just a genuine attempt to cripple the young crying wolf before he could ever grace Coliseo Cerberus.

    The finish of this match was fucking great too, and really has to be seen to be believed. I think in terms of negatives there's next to none here, besides the crowd just not being super interested in treating this match with any sort of respect. They even seemed to laugh at some of Keita's Keitaisms, which makes me wanna put out a Leavelle tweet concerning Keita Yano fans being part of an exclusive club. Outside of that though, this match was genuinely terrific, and absolutely worth checking out as soon as possible.

Rating: A-

Rikiya Fudo & Daisaku Shimoda vs. Masato Shibata & Kotaro Nasu (U-FILE 10/13/2013)

    Another match featuring the Shimoda Bros (or as I like to call them, the better Hardy Boyz), this time taking on STYLE-E's Masato Shibata and Kotaro Nasu at a U-FILE Camp show from 2013. On a personal note, I cannot even begin to explain how hard I've tried to obtain full U-FILE Camp shows. One from 2011 was main evented by Hikaru Sato vs. Daisuke Nakamura, and another from 2012 had not only Kazuki Okubo vs. Kotaro Nasu, but also Nakamura & Sato vs. Masato Shibata & Kyosuke Sasaki. If I can one day successfully get my hands on some of these U-FILE shows, I'll consider that my peak in the world of tape trading.

    My immediate thought is that this is an amazing mirror match, as you have on both sides a sleaze shooter teaming with a Vader tribute wrestler. And wouldn't you know it, this match was kinda worked how you would expect it from hearing that! There was a definite house show feel to it (probably coming from the fact this particular U-FILE event was mostly an MMA show with the wrestling matches as a treat), and the crowd was very much planning on enjoying this match one way or another, which just makes me sad the last match couldn't have happened in Nishi Chofu.

    Shibata and Nasu did pretty damn good here, with Nasu taking the role of babyface in peril and Shibata being the hot tag. Nasu is definitely under appreciated compared to his fellow U-FILE Camp peers, as while he's not at the level of Takeda, Sasaki, or Nakamura, he's absolutely worth talking about as a really damn good wrestler. He threw some nice strikes including some great shoteis, and his dropkick was sweet. Shibata meanwhile was fully playing the Vader role here, coming in and just laying waste to whoever he was in the ring with. He did an awesome German suplex to Fudo, and hit this absolutely crushing Vader Bomb to Daisaku:

    Once again however, the Shimoda Bros prove their superiority to all others by being general menaces here. Daisaku was once again playing the role of hardass shooter to perfection, throwing kicks and elbows while also just generally being mean. Fudo was the same, just beating up Nasu and hitting his signature spots while also doing some impressive stuff with Shibata. One of the best moments from both of them was getting to see their signature combination, I have no idea if there's a special name but you can pretty much guarantee that if you're watching a Shimoda Bros match, you'll see it.

    The finish of the match wasn't at the level of the last one, but it was still a pretty solid way to cap off the match. A generally pretty fun match with all four guys getting to do cool shit, nothing that I would cancel anything important over but if you're looking to see more from any of these four this is a match worth watching for sure.

Rating: B

Rikiya Fudo vs. Naoya Nomura (CAPTURE International 05/08/2022)

    We are now in the current year, with this match taking place not even a full month ago. This was the 2nd round of the CAPTURE Openweight Championship tournament, and both Fudo and Nomura were coming into this with a lot of steam. They had met less than two months previously a main event tag match at CAPTURE's first show since the pandemic, and thanks to the efforts of everyone @'ing Koki Kitahara on twitter, we were finally able to see a CAPTURE show for the first time since 2003 (I'll also almost definitely be talking about that match at some point). That is to say, this match had history going into it and certain expectations of quality based on both the killer main event tag and the great 1st round matches both guys had.

    Boy, did they outdo those expectations by a landslide.

    Right from the start this was absolutely wild, with both guys just running into each other like furious bulls and not dropping that energy for the entire match. Every single strike they threw had so much intensity behind it, and any hold either of them put in looked like it could end the match just from how hard both would wrench back.

    Naoya Nomura, of course, absolutely killed it here. He's really come into his own as a CAPTURE style bruiser, throwing mean strikes and cinching in tight holds constantly, while still maintaining a lot of his pro wrestling roots. In particular, his spear is one of, if not the best spear in the world currently, absolutely obliterating Fudo with it.

    Rikiya Fudo did not come to the CAPTURE Dungeon to be outdone, and if Nomura hit hard, then Fudo hit even harder. He was like a genuine beast in this match, completely brutalizing Nomura with chops, kicks, and of course his horrific Vader hammers. He even busted out one of the most fucked up elbow drops I have ever seen, landing directly on Nomura's face, as seen below:

    They absolutely tore into each other for the whole match, and it culminated in a finish that, while divisive among people I've talked to about it, I personally think worked great based on where they wanted to go with the tournament. This is, without exaggeration, my current match of the year. It's only 5 and a half minutes long, and at no point does it ever stop keeping me captivated. A testament to the abilities of both men in this environment, and I truly hope we get to see them go at it again very soon.

Rating: A