MERRY KURISUMAS! Holiday Greetings & Haphazard Beatings From Kurisu & Sons

           (Written by jom)

    Happy holidays! Hope you've all been well since the last time I put the proverbial pen to the proverbial paper. A combination of a busy life and brutal indecision has kept me away from the blog. I've planned out and cancelled at least three different large-scale projects meant for the blog since the last post in October, and I'll surely think up and scrap a few more before the year ends. Now don't fret: I do have a special project planned for the blog in the coming months for any of you that would care about a thing like that, and I plan to continue the Spitball Reviews series as well. I've escaped my rut, just in time for the holiday season. To celebrate, I'm writing about one of my biggest hyperfixations in wrestling: the Kurisu lineage. Masanobu Kurisu's influence goes far beyond instances of extreme liberty-taking, as Kurisu's gym (appropriately named Kurisu Gym) was the birthplace for a number of notable names, ranging from actual megastars to some of the scummiest sleaze indie workers you've ever seen. As this holiday is truly all about family, let's check in on what the Kurisu household has done over the past thirty or so years. 

Masanobu Kurisu vs. Keigo Kurihara (WAR 01/05/1994)

    The only match on the docket to not include exclusively Kurisu trainees, as this match features papa Kurisu himself. The Kurisu WAR run can generally be defined as "fun." He's still a bastard, a purveyor of chair-based violence, but he's also a fan favorite, more than happy to please the crowd with all his antics. Keigo Kurihara, meanwhile, is one of the many forgotten karatekas in wrestling history. Based on the commentary, he comes from Masashi Aoyagi's Seishin Kaikan dojo. As such, this is worked as a different style fight, a format Kurisu is deceptively adept in. One of the core tenants of different style fighting is the presence of different styles. It seems on the nose, but wrestlers choosing to focus entirely on certain aspects of their work to counteract their opponent is vital for the format. Masanobu Kurisu never has to worry about this problem because he's the most "pro wrestling" pro wrestler to walk planet earth. He's a real angry beast with all his stomping and slamming, dragging around Kurihara by the legs and recklessly throwing him out of the ring. Kurihara is able to get little bits of vengeance through his karate, but he's definitely a little floatier than most of the other Seishin Kaikan guys. Still, when his strikes land, they land, and when they don't, Kurisu is there to punish. Is it the best Kurisu different style fight? No, not by a long shot. Still, it's a perfectly fine match in an incredible genre, and the crowd eats it up. Hard to go wrong here. 

Match Rating: B

Green Fire Okumura vs. Blue Fire Kikuzawa (PWC 02/16/1995)

    It feels bizarre to cover this match in this blog post. This is a first round match from the rookie tournament on the Stray Dog Legend show, an event that honestly deserves its own coverage on the blog. I'm sure I'll at least talk about the main event in the future, once I finally bite the bullet and start working on my Shunji Takano dissertation. Anyways, Okumura and Kikuzawa are two of the earliest Kurisu trainees to make a splash on the wrestling scene, and this is especially early into their runs. Even if you combined both men's careers at this point, it still wouldn't be close to a year of experience. Still, they're here to rock the house, and they do so in style. Both men have their bombs that they throw incredibly well, and they pad everything out with solid matwork and quality pacing. Kikuzawa is a ball of fire with his flying kicks and insane suicide dive, while Okumura is always trying to crush him with massive lariats and a beauty of a moonsault. It's a real popcorn match from the halfway point onwards, lots of flash with enough substance to keep it worthwhile. Considering just how early both men are into their careers, this is a real feather in the cap and a clear sign that both had big things ahead of them.

Match Rating: B

Akira Kawabata vs. Tadanobu Fujisawa (Pro Wrestling X 03/30/2002)

    Seven years later, two more Kurisu trainees are brought in to rock the house. This takes place a few years after the J2000 exodus (more on that later), and there's a good chance this is the most exposure the final generation of Kurisu Gym trainees ever got before the gym shut down in 2004. Kawabata and Fujisawa are a significantly more experienced than their first generation counterparts were in the previous match, as Kawabata debuted in 1998 and Fujisawa debuted in 2000. More contrasts come in the match itself, as rather than working a fast-paced junior style bombfest, Kawabata and Fujisawa are more interested in heavyweight hits and deliberate grappling. It doesn't land perfectly, but that's not entirely on the two of them. They're wrestling for nobody but themselves, as the crowd can't be bothered to care. Nobody came to see two Kurisu rookies have a slower-paced and orthodox match. Everyone's here for Onita theatre, and these two are not on the bill. Still, they make the best of it, with both men hunting for armbars and pulling out some cool spots, like Fujisawa's early spear to cut off a shoulder tackle exchange, as well as Kawabata's gross kicks and shoteis. The match's slower moments really feel slow thanks to the silent crowd, but a lot of the work does hold up pretty well. I hope these two know that somewhere out there, there's a dude from the United States that appreciates this match a lot more than the people in the crowd did.

Match Rating: B-

Kenji Fukimoto & Takuya Fujiwara vs. Riki Senshu & Junpuku Yamamoto (J2K 11/07/2004)

    A little bit of an info dump before getting into this. J2K is a rare existence: an exodus fed formed out of an exodus fed. In 1999, Hiroaki Moriya led a exodus from Kurisu Gym to form his promotion J2000. The majority of Kurisu Gym wrestlers left with him, including Ryo Tamiyasu, the future Riki Senshu. Only a few years into J2000's existence, cracks began to form between Moriya and the duo of Tamiyasu and Kenji Fukimoto. Tamiyasu eventually decided to retire in 2002, hosting the retirement event in his newly-formed promotion, J2K. Within a year, half of the J2000 roster would leave to join J2K alongside Tamiyasu and Fukimoto, and Tamiyasu would return in 2003 to act as one of J2K's top stars. It's such a fascinating tale of wrestling politics and individual visions leading to the Osaka sleaze indies being run by two different groups of Kurisu trainees. Now, regarding the match at hand: I love this match. I've probably seen it ten times. It's one of my favorite matches to come out of the Kurisu family, with all four guys willing to go buck wild on one another while having a match on a kindergarten's playground. Fukimoto and Fujiwara are so mean and vicious, throwing tons of closed fists, stiff kicks, and full-force stomps to different parts of Senshu and Yamamoto's bodies, while also working like a well-oiled machine during all of their tandem offense. The face team responds with equal viciousness and some really great house of fire spots, especially Yamamoto's spears and Senshu's lariat barrage. Everyone hits their bombs so well, but more than that, everyone is just so explosive in everything they do. A common trend among Kurisu trainees is vocalization, and everyone here is always yelling or cursing at each other in a way that makes all of it feels so heated. Is there the occasional instance of sloppiness, a slip-up here or there? Absolutely! Even considering that, this match has such a genuine spirit to it. It feels like a fight, a wrestling match with so much emotion pouring out of that ring. Every person here deserved the world; the fact that Fukimoto is the only one working at a higher level nowadays is a damn shame.

Match Rating: A-

Takafumi Ito vs. Ikuto Hidaka (ZERO1 09/12/2012)

    We end our journey through the faces of Kurisu Gym with two of the earliest members, and two men that went on very different paths in their careers. Hidaka and Ito joined around the same time, quickly becoming best friends, before leaving around the same time as well. Both headed from Osaka to Tokyo, where Hidaka would join the Animal Hamaguchi gym and the Battlarts dojo, while Ito would abandon professional wrestling entirely and instead join Pancrase as its first homegrown fighter. Ten years before this match, Hidaka made his MMA debut in DEEP against Ito, losing via chokehold. One year before this match, Ito made his pro wrestling debut in ZERO1 against Hidaka, losing via head kick. Now, 20 years after their time in Kurisu Gym, the two face off once more as part of the Tenka-Ichi tournament. What we end up getting is a generally fun shoot style brawl, albeit one with some notable issues. I'm generally a Hidaka low-voter, and a solid amount of his bad habits shone through even with the three minute runtime. His strikes, while mostly alright, had a few moments of just looking pretty painless, and he had to shoe-in some "fighting spirit" type yelling and a dumb double head kick spot. Ito also showed some roughness to his work, but I feel more comfortable excusing him since all of his issues clearly stemmed from him being so new to pro wrestling. Still, both guys had their moments, with Ito's grappling being the key highlight of the match, pulling out some nice holds and a massive uranage. Hidaka generally did a good job of fighting back while also pulling out a bomb or two like his sick reverse DDT. Even with its faults, I still think this was solid enough, and, similar to the Okumura/Kikuzawa match covered earlier, was clear evidence that Ito had a ton of potential in him at this point.

Match Rating: B-

Spitball Reviews #6

         (Written by jom)

Masao Ando vs. Takahiro Tababa (Mutoha 04/20/2019)

    A matchup that's happened so much, the fans in Japan gave it a nickname! "Aka Oni v Ao Oni", or red demon (Tababa) versus blue demon (Ando). Pretty fitting name in my honest opinion. Ando and Tababa are two of the best tubby crowbars in a modern Japanese indie scene shockingly filled with quality tubby crowbars. With how the industry in general has progressed, you'd think that type of wrestler would be a dying breed, but there's inexplicably more of them around than anyone knows what to do with. These two are given ten minutes to beat the tar out of each other in front of a small Mutoha crowd, and there are very few people more qualified for that type of environment than Ando and Tababa. Even if I've referred to them both as crowbars and demons, they're not the exact same wrestlers, and the little changes in execution between the two are really where this rivalry shines. Ando is an incredibly labored wrestler. Everything he does feels heavy and strained, every kick taking so much power from Ando that it causes his whole body to move with his leg. A universal human experience is every person's first time swinging a large stick. We've felt our own bodies move almost involuntarily, rotating with as much force as possible to send that stick to high heaven. Masao Ando has large sticks for limbs, and he's doing his damndest to swing them directly into the head of Tababa. On the opposite end, Tababa is a precision fighter. Every strike lands with all of the force focused on the sharpest point. When he kicks, the point of his boot is what connects with Ando's ribs. When he knees, the kneecap is what flies into Ando's gut. This isn't an exact summation of his striking, but it's clear that's what his intent is. Ando is full force everything, and Tababa is concentrated power. Beyond all of that pontificating, this is just a great brawl of a shoot style match. Ando slams Tababa hard multiple times throughout the match and nearly breaks his neck with a german suplex, and Tababa's unrelenting with his hyperextending holds and kick flurries. With many matches, the action builds until it boils over and turns into something uncontrollable. This match exists in a state of being boiled over from bell to bell. An amazing display of how awesome wrestling can be when two guys really work like they want to kick each other's asses. 

Match Rating: A-

Ryo Tamiyasu vs. Junpuku Yamamoto (J2K 09/23/2003)

    Ryo Tamiyasu makes his official return to pro wrestling. I've actually covered his initial return as Riki Senshu on the blog before (in one of my favorite posts from last year), but the name "Ryo Tamiyasu" hadn't been listed on a matchcard since his retirement until now, so there's the official part of it. Any time I watch work involving the J2K guys, I'm always fascinated by the commonalities of their work - the little touches that link all of them back to Masanobu Kurisu. Tamiyasu and Yamamoto are two of the strongest examples when it comes to Kurisu's influence on his trainees. Both love to vocalize. Both have the execution of basics down pat, and aren't afraid to rely on those basics instead of pushing themselves to "innovate" or needlessly change their offense up. Both turn up the heat by introducing more force into their movements. As such, this match is the tightly-worked, hard-hitting affair that I tend to love. It clocks in at just under ten minutes but manages to properly tell the story of a high stakes main event without feeling rushed or forced. Tamiyasu's punches and Yamamoto's uppercuts regularly have audible connection, and an exclamation point is placed at the end of every movement with both men's yelling and shit-talking. Looking beyond all the smaller detail work and connections to Kurisu, both are just so awesome at throwing bombs, especially in a match where the bomb-throwing is built so well considering how little time they use to build it. Yamamoto's piledrivers are disgusting and reckless in the best way, and Tamiyasu's out-of-nowhere northern lights bomb completely blew me away. Maybe you could complain about a match this short having such a climactic-feeling finishing stretch, or you could point out the one or two times where the men could've tightened up the match structure and spacing between work. I won't though. This was great, a total blast of a watch and further proof that Kurisu built an army of monster workers throughout the 90s that'll never truly get the appreciation they deserve.

Match Rating: A-

Masakazu Fukuda vs. Masaaki Mochizuki (WYF 08/04/1998)

    The key singles match of the endless WYF vs. Buko Dojo rivalry. The feud kicked off in early 1997, and here we are over a year later. Karatekas hold a grudge. Rather than being a different style fight, this ends up more as Fukuda and Mochizuki successfully predicting the juniors style of the 2000s. Both men are really talented and know how to get into their spots well, and they pull off a ton of little counter sequences, none of which ever go so long that it loses the magic. Mochizuki is a monster kicker who's gone from Kitao's poster child for his karate revolution to a truly masterful hybrid junior. Fukuda fights back against Mochizuki's quick feet with real mat supremacy, grinding him down with arm holds after a mishap results in Mochizuki slamming his arm into the ring post. Does the limb work lead anywhere? Not particularly, but it fills time well and never goes too long as to require some sort of bigger payoff or heightened attention to selling. Honestly, as I write this, I wonder why I loved this match so much. There's so many things about this match that I hold against matches that occurred in the last five years. Limb selling that goes nowhere? check. A somewhat stupid opening spot? They did the double dropkick, so check. An abrupt no-sell? check. On paper, this match has no right getting as much love from me as it does. I think what makes this match different from many other matches to feature these same tropes is not only that this match predates many of those matches by multiple decades, but also that these two execute these spots so well that I really don't care. The no-sell is especially forgiven, as a Mochizuki DDT is immediately no-sold by Fukuda into a deep armbar. There's a quickness and urgency to it that takes it from a corny "I power up through fighting spirit!!!" shitshow and turns it into a genuine burst of energy at the sight of a perfect opportunity. I'd say this is a great match if you turn your brain off, but it's honestly great enough that the brain can stay entirely on and still find a ton to enjoy here. I pray that I one day get to peek into the reality where both these guys found a home in a more fitting fed in their later years like Battlarts or ZERO1. This type of work would've done them very kindly.

Match Rating: A-

Hiroshi Watanabe vs. Phantom Funakoshi (SGP 05/04/1998)

    Is this the best match to ever happen at a flea market? At least within SGP's flea market show history, there's a few contenders, like the great space war where one of the Brahmans breaks an incredibly expensive Astro Boy statue, forcing Great Sasuke to buy it and use it in the next great space war. Still, this has to be the standout match of that catalogue. Watanabe is a Kotetsu Yamamoto trainee and Funakoshi is an Inoki idolizer, so they deliver the type of technical masterclass that would've blown a lot of people's minds if it didn't happen in front of passively-interested passersby. It feels like a higher level midcard match ripped right out of early 1980s NJPW, with incredible displays of body control like Watanabe's awe-inspiring escape from a knuckle-lock, and a real smorgasbord (I should have to pay a tax for using this word) of slick counters for holds and even slicker counters for counters. The work both guys put into all of their holds is laudable as well. Funakoshi spends a solid section of the early match trying his damndest to maintain a side headlock, and the way he rotates his body on the ground to keep Watanabe away from breaking the grip is immaculate. They stick to the grappling for a solid 2/3rds of the match, but once they get rolling with everything else, the quality stays just as high. Both men throw out some really great suplexes, like Watanabe's textbook german or Funakoshi's super impressive uranage. Watanabe even goes to the top rope and hits a crazy looking diving splash for a close 2.9. I try to avoid just listing moves as much as I can, but I honestly don't know what else to do with this match outside of repeatedly stating how perfect the work is. It's a match displaced out of time, meant for a raucous Korakuen Hall in 1982 instead of a flea market sixteen years later. It's no wonder that Watanabe would lead the charge with high-level grappling in the 21st century with Mumeijuku/Mutoha, and it's honestly a damn shame that Funakoshi never got to work there before hanging up the boots earlier this year. This one's available from Hasegawa for only $2. Bite the bullet and enjoy what may be the best technical wrestling match of 1998.

Match Rating: A

MIKAMI vs. Kuishinbo Kamen (Kamen Produce 12/15/2010)

    Kuishinbo Kamen's mask has angry eyes for this one. You know it's time to get serious. MIKAMI and Kamen actually have a ton of history, producing some great work in the 90s as both partners and opponents. This is their first time meeting in the ring since Kamen became Kamen, and I guess there was a score to settle? Kamen is an entirely different beast than usual in this match. Gone are the bits and goofs; say hello to Great Kabuki-style uppercuts and punt kicks. This is one of those real great juniors matches that pretty successfully blends a lot of different work together thanks to the talents of both men. MIKAMI and Kamen seamlessly flow from clean and pretty grappling to gritty punching and slapping to high octane juniors sprinting, all while maintaining a great pace and properly escalating everything. MIKAMI gets a busted mouth from all the Kabuki uppercuts and while he never really responds with equivalent violence, he more than makes up for it with massive bombs, like the ludicrous spot on the outside you really need to see to believe. The fans being so behind Kamen for the entire match is almost shocking considering his viciousness, albeit it makes complete sense. This is Kuishinbo Kamen's arena. These are Kuishinbo Kamen's people. Better to cheer on the devil you know than surrender your hopes to the hot guy you don't. Luckily, MIKAMI never tries to go for a sympathetic babyface-in-peril angle, and relies entirely on himself with tricked-out juniors work and a great mind for countering. His flying codebreaker is such an awesome move, easily the best execution of that move I've ever seen and perfectly combo'd with one of his always-great schoolboy pins. Speaking of schoolboys, the cradle rush near the end of this match is so great, and truly works here as opposed to a lot of other matches with this type of spot. MIKAMI and Kamen are trickster juniors and have been for their entire careers. They've won tons of matches with roll-ups and cradles, so out of everyone to spend a minute going for just those, these two are the most apt for the occasion. Even with some moments of dead air, this feels undeniable to me. A wonderful encounter, the type that makes me long for the reality where these two faced off at their physical peaks around 2003.

Match Rating: A-