Jom Catches Up on GLEAT Vol. 3 AND Vol. 4

     (Written by Jom)

    So, since I've taken such a long time to do this, I thought I might as well double up and do both of the latest volumes in one post. Prepare for your daily fill of Daijiro Matsui, Yu Iizuka, and all the other wacky boys at the GLEAT camp.

    In terms of new signings to the promotion, GLEAT has only had one, but definitely a big one in Ryuichi Kawakami from BJW. Big Japan is one of my favorite promotions, I've been following them actively for about two years now and Kawakami has always been one of my dark horse favorites. It'll feel weird to not see him in a Big Japan ring anymore, but he's been getting overlooked there for a long time and GLEAT might be the place for him to really prove himself. Also, if GLEAT really are scouting from BJW, I better hear about Kazuki Hashimoto signing with them next. That guy deserves the world and hasn't been given shit by BJW for years.

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+

Soma Watanabe vs. Yu Iizuka

    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+

Takanori Ito vs. Yu Iizuka

    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+

    Well, we've reached the end of the GLEAT volumes, at least at this point. Going forward I'll make single-match posts the day after each match is posted, along with full reviews of GLEAT shows in the future. Starting tomorrow, GLEAT will be doing a four man pro-wrestling rules tournament featuring Hayashi, Ito, Iizuka, and Watanabe, so be on the lookout for my first match review of that. Keep on GLEATing everybody.

Jom Catches Up on GLEAT Vol. 2

    (Written by Jom)

       Since I last did a GLEAT catch-up post, there have been some developments for the promotion that I'm personally extremely excited for. Firstly, I learned Yu Iizuka was signed very late last year, which is so fucking awesome. For those unaware, Iizuka has been an absolute treat on the puro indy scene in the last year, using the nickname "Lil Volk" based on his amazing technical proficiency and absolute love for the Russian Wolf himself. He's gonna fit GLEAT greatly and slot in smoothly as their third promising rookie. He even made his debut yesterday in Volume 4, so I might be rushing these updates out pretty fast so I can watch him already. It was also announced more recently that GLEAT had signed both Daijiro Matsui and Minoru Tanaka. Both guys are shoot aficionados who have been around for a long time, with Matsui starting as a Takada Dojo guy in 1996 UWFi and Tanaka beginning his career in PWFG and BattlArts. Matsui hasn't done pro wrestling since 2015, so it'll be great to see him back in the ring, but I'm honestly most excited for Tanaka. He's a juniors legend and will kill it in every match, whether it be normal rules or UWFi rules. And speaking of UWFi rules...

UPDATE: News has come out that Tamura decided he would be based as hell by signing #STRONGHEARTS members CIMA, T-Hawk, El Lindaman, and Issei Onitsuka. I honestly don't have much to say about this signing, as all four guys have seemingly no experience in a shoot environment but are also four of the best formerly unsigned workers in Japan. Tamura not only made a great investment in GLEAT's future, but also just made this two-weeks late post a lot more relevant, so on behalf of SK1B, I thank you wholeheartedly Kiyoshi Tamura.

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+

Jom Catches Up on GLEAT Vol. 1

   (Written by Jom)

       I'll be 100% honest here: I haven't been following GLEAT. Which, knowing my own tastes, is very weird for me. I love the U-System and GLEAT seems committed to being the next promotion in the acclaimed style's history, I love Tamura and his booking (see U-Style for proof he's pretty good at it), and I love all the members of the roster we've seen so far, with both GLEAT young guns Soma Watanabe and Takanori Ito looking great. And yet, after the first GLEAT show last year, I've not watched a single Youtube match of theirs. Honestly, I still have no idea why since I would definitely enjoy those matches more than the debut show, and I say that knowing I really enjoyed that event. Luckily, this changes now. GLEAT currently has nine matches on their channel, and each match is labeled as "Experimental Match Vol. _". Starting with this post, I will be reviewing every GLEAT match on Youtube, going volume by volume.

Soma Watanabe vs. Mitsuya Nagai

    This match was also under UWFi rules, a ruleset GLEAT uses alternatingly with normal puro rules. From the start of this match, it was very clear who had the advantage. Even if you didn't know the difference of experience, Nagai shows very quickly who is more comfortable in UWFi rules, putting Watanabe in a leg lock that forces him to use one of his points to escape. From that point on, Watanabe in fighting from below, and although he's fighting hard, Nagai is consistently able to keep him down. The grappling between the two is much less slick than other matches, with Nagai being pretty old and Watanabe obviously being new to shoot style, but there's a level of roughness to it that really works. Sometimes, the grappling can be too slick and seem somewhat choreographed, but the way these two wrestle feels real and violent. Speaking of violent, Nagai is a total killer in this match, throwing some hard kicks to Watanabe's ribs and using these really good joint-popping holds, most notably a beautiful leg keylock. Watanabe isn't a slouch either though, as although his grappling definitely needs work, he does throw some okay slaps and did a great backdrop to Nagai, getting Nagai to lose a point on a down. This, however, was the only point Nagai lost. By the end of the match, the score was 4-0, with Watanabe having been forced to use up all his points on rope breaks. Nagai was able to take advantage of how worn down Watanabe was to put in this disgusting arm trapped guillotine, almost having Watanabe in a hammer lock while choking the life out of him, getting the submission victory. The match overall was pretty good. At no point did anything look bad, and the sloppiness in some of the ground exchanges never went from a positive to a negative, but at the same time nothing really notable happened. This was a good introduction to what Watanabe can do in a shoot environment, as well as a reminder of how great Nagai can be.

Rating: B

Takanori Ito vs. Yutaka Yoshie

    This whole match had some weird editing quirks, with the inside of the ring being superimposed on top of a recording of the outside of the ring (to hide whoever was out there I assume), but it never got in the way of my enjoyment of this match. Speaking of, this was really good for a lot of reasons. I haven't seen much of Yoshie and his bright pink singlet since his NJPW days, so it's great to see he's awesome as ever. He's also big as ever, which plays big into this match. He crushes Ito throughout the match with body blocks while also stopping Ito in his tracks when he starts getting momentum by just planting himself into the ground. Ito is definitely more polished than Watanabe, throwing absolutely great kicks and elbows, including a great leg sweep and spinning heel kick. He's also got some really good grappling game, and at one point is able to hit a backdrop suplex on Yoshie, which I can't begin to praise. However, no amount of kicks or suplexes can stop the absolute raw BEEF of Yoshie, who flattens Ito with a thesz press and senton, before hitting some great urakens and doing a DIVING BODY PRESS to Ito. Ito is down for the 3 count, and I assume for lot longer. This had some slow moments in the first half, with some of the basic working between the two lacking any energy, but the peaks of this match were pretty high. Hope Yoshie sticks around in GLEAT going forward, and I cannot wait to see more of Ito in singles action.

Rating: B

Takanori Ito/Soma Watanabe vs. Daisuke Sekimoto/Kaz Hayashi

    I think this match sold me on Watanabe entirely. Everyone in this match performed well, and Ito was great as the hot tag guy, but Watanabe just did his job near perfectly. Sekimoto and Ito brought some great fire early on. Actually, they brought great fire through the entire match, which is something I knew Sekimoto could do but Ito being only one step behind him in that regard was awesome to see. Hayashi has always been great, and here in a veteran juniors role he worked really well. Watanabe, however, was just at another level. His selling is notably good, really making the damage he sustained in the match apparent, but honestly, one moment in particular sold me on him. Towards the end of the match, he tried to whip Hayashi off the ropes but Hayashi countered into a handspring kick. This might be controversial, but I usually hate handspring moves. Most of the time, the person doing them isn't fast enough to make it look realistic, and it's extremely rare that the person receiving the move sells in a way to cover for that lack of speed. Watanabe sold in the right way and made it fucking work. I cannot saw enough how cool that was to me. Just moving past his selling, he has such a great arsenal too, doing an awesome forward roll forearm smash with hang-time reminiscent of KANON's volleyball spike chop (reminding me I should probably consider getting into JTO), as well as a beautiful missile dropkick. Honestly, with moves like this, I've realized Watanabe probably shouldn't spend much time with the UWFi rules matches. He's much more suited having normal puro matches, in contrast to Ito's superiority in the UWFi rules matches. Having Ito as the shooter ace and Watanabe as the puro ace would be a really cool concept for GLEAT to stand out, and both men would fit those roles perfectly given enough time to grow. Speaking of Ito, I definitely don't want to forget to mention his FALLAWAY SLAM TO SEKIMOTO. I'm not joking, Ito's strength is INSANE. He also did his backdrop again, and honestly, it has to be one of the best in the Japanese scene today, with only Hideyoshi Kamitani's backdrop coming to mind when trying to think of one done better. Again, both Sekimoto and Hayashi were great here, but I feel like I need to say just how awesome Ito and especially Watanabe were. Although Sekimoto got the win for his team with a nasty lariat, this match has made me extremely hopeful for GLEAT's two young aces.

Rating: B+