Jump to content
DVDVR Message Board

2013 Yes/No: All Other Promotions (Joshi and Smaller Indies)


Kevin Wilson

Recommended Posts

Here is where you can nominate and vote for matches from promotions listed in the thread title.  Before you nominate a match, please make sure it wasn't already nominated.  In this first post I will keep track of all the nominated matches and I will update it every few days or so which should make things easier.  Happy voting!

 

Nominated (as of 1/12 at 1:30 PM EST):

 

1/13 in Ishikawa Pro: Manabu Suruga vs. Shintaro Takeda - 2 yes, 0 no
1/13 in Ishikawa Pro: Yuki Ishikawa and Super Tiger II vs. Kazunari Murakami and Hideki Suzuki - 2 yes, 0 no
1/13 in Ishikawa Pro: Bisen TAGAI & Tiger Shark vs. Kenji Takeshima & Katsumi Usuda - 1 yes, 0 no
4/12 in Gurentai: Fujiwara vs. Mochizuki - 1 yes, 0 no
5/1 in WNC: Tajiri vs. Koji Doi - 1 yes, 0 no
5/29 in Dradition: TAJIRI vs. Shinya Ishikawa - 1 yes, 0 no
10/31 in WNC: Tajiri vs. TAKA Michinoku - 1 yes, 0 no
11/19 in Dradition: Masakatsu Funaki vs. LEONA - 1 yes, 0 no
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

Nominating:

Tajiri vs. Koji Doi, WNC 5/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YeKhK6fjGE

And as crazy as it sounds, Tajiri really may be the best guy in japan. I don't know if he figured out how to work like this when he was feuding with Finlay last year or if there's a plethora of under the radar Tajiri gems filmed at tiny locations from previous years, but his current act of veteran grappler badass is such a joy to watch. It just plain delivers the goods and this is another singles match which makes me want to see everything he's done. The opening mat section of this is so great, with some superb technique, struggle and attention to detail i.e. that vicious grinding elbow right at the beginning. I'm a sucker for all types of cool matwork, be it shootstyle, lucha or WoS and Tajiri seems to mix it all together. Doi is a tubby rookie, nothing special but he doesn't do anything retarded. Match probably would've been better had it stayed on the mat, but Tajiri provided a decent layout as he really sold the frustration of getting kicked around by the kid so he just goes on to kick the shit out of his leg. I mean he just kind of tries to amputate it with stomps. Doi could've sold better and the second half didn't quite live up to the promise of the first, but I loved Tajiri's desperate dive for the leglock and the finish with Doi trying to protect himself with the clinch and Taj just slaying him was that kind of cool visual Tajiri has developed a real knack for.

 

Fujiwara vs. Mochizuki, Gurentai 4/12
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x18iyss_t...-2013-1-3_sport

If you wanna check out Fujiwara vs. indy kicker you may atleast get a decent quality indy kicker and Mochizuki is way above the Davey Richards standard. Right from the get go he's just attacking relentlessly and dishes out the punishment. It wasn't quite a Super Tiger level assbeating but then Fujiwara's like 70, and Mochi had a nice variety of strikes, kicks, quick punches and his knees to the head were just nasty. As a result there wasn't as much cool Fujiwara matwork, as Fujiwara who was smirking at first seemed to get continuesly more annoyed with his opponent and returned the favor with a couple punches of his own, including one that landed square in Mochizuki's face and some stiff headbutts. It really was like 1985 all over again as he did some of his cool signature positioning stuff. Match also had the disgusting submission dislocation spots you want from a Fujiwara match, and I really liked the finish, Mochizuki overestimates himself, lets his DG tendencies come out and bites him in the ass. Had this gone 5-7 minutes longer it could've been a MOTYC, but this was still far better than I expected from a 5 minute opener.

 

TAJIRI vs. Shinya Ishikawa- Dradition 5/29
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x10elz4_05-tajiri-vs-shinya-ishikawa-dradition-05-29-13_sport

I was a little sceptical of this going in, but the match slowly won me over and I ended up loving it more than I expected initially. Tajiri: euro style master technician is weird as fuck, but after this I want to go back and watch anything he's done because he was ruling it here. He was so smug pretty much whipping the boy silly with kicks then trying all kinds of submissions on him. The initial arm drag sequence that set up the armwork was really neat and the constant going back to that a cool theme for the match. Watching this at first I kind of thought Shinya Ishikawa was just barely a warm body for Tajiri to drag around, but I wound up appreciating his minimalist approach and picking his moments. Especially that when he finally woke up he remembered he was still a BJW guy and just began busting out the headbutts. Finishing run was neatly put together. Great match.

 

Tajiri vs. TAKA Michinoku, WNC 10/31
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x184r0j_w...-2013-3-3_sport

If you've liked the previously nominated Tajiri matches, you'll like this. This was MUGAish, all the deliberate technical stuff in this match ruled, and had they stayed longer on the mat it would've been an easy MOTYC. TAKA can still bring the goods when given the opportunity to work a lengthier singles match, and thanks to Tajiri's sellling it made for a pretty exciting second half. Most of it was centered around TAKA's facelook and there were a bunch of neat counters and variations. Also, for a guy who has been working WWE style so long Tajiri's strikes are unbelievably sharp.

 

Manabu Suruga vs. Shintaro Takeda Ishikawa Produce 1/13

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-5Qi7X76_0

 

This was just plain matwork and violence. Takeda looked like a guy in his first pro wrestling match and seems kinda bland, but fuck it's puro you have to be stoic. I liked his staggering selling of strikes and he threw a mean elbow and looked in submissions well. But this was the Suruga show. Just an ungodly performance as he was just a gigantic dickhead and beat the shit out of Takeda with a whole barrage of violent offense. Some of those palm strike flurries looked unreal. The finish is just badass. It was not just stiffness as you could tell he was laying out the match and by the end people were really getting into it. Really hope we see some more Suruga, somehow.

Yuki Ishikawa/Super Tiger II vs. Kazunari Murakami/Hideki Suzuki Ishikawa Pro 1/13

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UfbFY-6-jg

This was the badassness of a BattlARTS tag fused with a Naoya Ogawa brawl or WAR main event. Murakami is breathing fire and back in 2000 form punching people in the face and being big ol' asshole. Ishikawa was freakin great as you'd expect, he's changed his look and dumped the beard, so you realize he's really turning into an old man. He wasn't afraid to die throwing face punches and enzuigiris. STII actually looked real good for a while looking spry during the chaotic brawling portions, he actually hit all his kicks well and didn't do any dumb Sayama shit. Suzuki had a nice proper shoot mat section with Ishikawa as his 70s stuff goes very well with the UWF style. STII/Suzuki section kind of sucked, but wasn't outright shit like it's been in the past. The finish was just grim with two absolutely murderous suplex moves, the craziest german that I've seen in a while and one hell of a punch to the face.

 

Masakatsu Funaki vs. LEONA- Dradition 11/19

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x18demg_d...-2013-2-3_sport

Guess this beats Takeda/Hara for the rookie squash of the year. Funaki just came across as so intimidating - not just "I can blow off all your offense at will", closer to "common I dare you to touch me". Dylan summed it up nicely and I give Leona a ton of credit - anytime Funaki easily swept him or locked in a submission he got up selling and seemed to become a bigger and bigger target, but kept finding ways to get at Funaki. I also loved his variation on the dragon screw. That kid has his own ideas. And whenever Funaki is throwing hands or feet, it's just a slaughter. This is exactly what you want it to be.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
Here we go...

 

NOMINATION - Bisen TAGAI & Tiger Shark vs. Kenji Takeshima & Katsumi Usuda (1/13)

- Big surprise: Usuda is still a bad motherfucker. Watching him on defense is a joy, I could watch him counter jabronies all day.

- Tagai and Takeshima are dudes I remember seeing in the opening matches on Battlarts cards towards the end and I never saw much in either, but Takeshima looks really solid here with hard elbows and nice takedowns. Also he provides the first sick ass shoot headbutts of the night.

- Tiger Shark... I don't know dude, he does a standing moonsault that misses Usuda by a mile and then grabs an armbar like it was an elaborate set-up. Hmm... You still stink like balls, Tiger Shark

- The match is at its best when they're just beating the piss out of TAGAI. Takeshima throws more ridiculous elbows and Usuda punts him in the face for an 8 count. He looks good on the comeback too, with a flurry of palms and great butterfly suplex.

- Tiger Shark is a huge idiot. He does a tombstone piledriver and follows it with an old school boots scrape and a flying headbutt. What a retard. He *almost* redeems himself with a reckless spinning heel that nearly kills Takeshima for the KO. Almost.

 

Good stuff, even if Tiger Shark did his damnedest to drag it down.

 

YES - Manabu Suruga vs. Shintaro Takeda (1/13)

- I'm the world's biggest Suruga/Hara fan so I was gonna love this no matter what, but...

- GOD DAMN. It seems like a fair exhibition as they trade holds for the first couple minutes on the mat but as soon as they stand it up and start trading elbows, it gets nasty in a hurry.

- Suruga isn't holding anything back and I don't know if Takeda just didn't have anything more in him or what, but those weak little elbows just served to piss Suruga off further. Suruga even sells for the poor bastard, which is the only thing keeping me from believing this wasn't some massive joke on Takeda.

- This turns pretty quickly into a desperate struggle for survival for young Takeda, as he absorbs knees to the face in an attempt to get Suruga back on the mat. And it actually works! Except, oh, now Suruga is really getting tired of this.

- Suruga is a massive dick in this, talking a lot of shit and standing on Takeda's face, which makes it rather satisfying when Takeda finally grabs a successful takedown to delay the onslaught. He's not bad on the mat but is severely outclassed everywhere else. And oh yeah, Suruga's no slouch on the ground either. Next thing you know he has the child in a half crab struggling desperately for the ropes. A quick German suplex and a roundhouse kick to the ear later and he's choking the boy out.

 

If you're into Suruga and/or shoot style ass beatings, give this a shot.

 

YES - Yuki Ishikawa & Super Tiger 2 vs. Hideki Suzuki & Kazunari Murakami (1/13)

- The Ishikawa vs. Murakami feud is one of the reasons I first got into this style. Their match from November 2000 might still be my all-time favorite Battlarts singles match.

- This one begins beautifully with ST2 going off on Kazu, murdering him with stomps and kicks and palm thrusts. "Remember me mother fucker. Super Tiger Numero Dos, remember me from 2007. You bitch." Big Man comes back with a similar flurry and we're off to a hell of a start.

- Competitive Suzuki/Ishikawa mat section gives way to our first taste of Murakami/Ishikawa and fuck me it's intense. Old Man Ishikawa is one of the best sellers in all of wrestling. It's like the more hair he loses, the more sympathetic he becomes. That said, boy can he still kick some fucking ass. 

- Suzuki & Murakami really heel it up here, putting a lot of heat on Ishikawa and fighting dirty to maintain the advantage. All four match-ups here are immensely satisfying, with ST2 and Suzuki never feeling like afterthoughts, but Ishikawa/Murakami is obviously the centerpiece here and they have plenty of horrifying exchanges together.

- The finishing run does a great job of feeling sudden and believable, and features two of the sickest suplex bumps I've seen all year.

 

Excellent and brutal MOTYC. It might not seem all that special to some, but in a year that saw so little shoot style make tape, this is a breath of fresh (nostalgic?) air. Ishikawa is still one of the best in the world at selling a beating, and one of the best at giving one too. NOW WHERE'S MY FU TEN

Link to comment
Share on other sites

NOMINATION - Kana vs. Hanako Nakamori (JWP 10/14)

Not perfect, but man did these ladies kick the shit out of each other. I watched this mainly because I saw it was a Kana title match that went over ten minutes, and I wasn't disappointed. She has to hold Hanako's hand through this a bit, but it works. Kana is such a fucking asshole here, stomps- kicks- elbows- slaps- backfists- you name it, and she knocks the piss out of Nakamori with 85% of them. They do some crowd brawling in the first half and a good bit of submission struggling in the second, and in a year with so little shoot style showing up online, this is a bright spot. It's not perfect, as mentioned, as some of the strikes don't connect quite like you'd hope, but for the most part this is some dirty ass mean ass joshi pro wres and the finishing run is white hot. Kana~

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Aaand triple post. Sweet jesus

 

EDIT: Maybe I can redeem one of these extra posts with a YES vote for Mochizuki vs. Fujiwara

 

YES - Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Masaaki Mochizuki (Gurentai 12/04) - Oh yes. Mochizuki is good in tags and sprints, and this might be his best match in five years. Fujiwara, well, he's one of the best as being a fucking mean old man and here he plays maestro very well. Excellent, hard strikes and some intense struggling for holds, and this is about as good as 5 minute matches get. Up there with Ono/Ikeda; not quite as intense but just as entertaining.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, that was my one big problem with it. I just really like Kana kicking people though, whether they sell or not.

 

By the way, the dates on some of these are incorrect in the original post. TAJIRI vs. Koji Doi was from November 5 and Fujiwara vs Mochizuki was from December 4.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

I can't seem to find that. Do you have a link? Also, here's some shit I copied from another site.

 

NOMINATION - Daisuke Sekimoto & Alexander Otsuka vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Akitoshi Saito (Dradition 11/19) - This ruled immediately just because Saito comes off like a total hard ass in the pre-match. God I loved this match. The opening matwork and striking by Otsuka and Fujiwara is good stuff, and you want it to just be them for the entire match but Sekimoto and Saito (especially) hold up their ends and the middle portion flows nicely with Saito and Sekimoto looking just as competent in their exchanges as the shoot style bad asses did. Their finishing sequence was especially cool. This was still mostly the Fujiwara show for me. I think sometimes that modern old man Fujiwara might actually be my favorite Fujiwara. What a crazy old fuck. I love him and I will watch him do anything. I watched him wrestle fucking Stalker Ichikawa in a 10 minute comedy match on a fucking Dragon Gate show earlier this month. And it was amazing.

 

Masakatsu Funaki vs. LEONA (Dradition 11/19) - YES - This was pretty fucking cute. LEONA looks hilarious and Funaki is Funaki. It's pretty funny watching him kick the shit out of the kid and then casually sit down into a jujigatame, all while Fujinami watches from way in the back with the best Dad Look on his face. LEONA looked fine, green as shit obviously, but fine, and Funaki led him to (or beat him into) a pretty solid competitive squash.
 
Taka Michinoku vs. Tajiri (WNC 10/31) - YES - God these guys are still so good. Taka doesn't get nearly enough chance to shine like this in New Japan, but Tajiri gives him enough to remind you that Taka is one of the all around most underrated juniors in the world. They don't even do anything much in the way of flashy junior style stuff, this is a really simple and even back and forth battle between two veterans who have been all around the world. Great submission work and excellent momentum building throughout. I didn't like the kinda-no sell of the Buzzsaw Kick but it wasn't so bad since it led directly into an awesome finishing sequence. Excellent.
 
Tajiri vs. Koji Doi (WNC 11/05) - NO - Doesn't it feel like Tajiri gave this clown way too much offense? Especially when we saw him give that Ishikawa with the pretty hair next to nothing in that Dradition match. Still, logic be damned, it's fun to watch Tajiri working from the bottom. He's great at selling the desperation. That said, Doi is fucking worthless; bad strikes, bad matwork, bad timing. He looked lost in between every other sequence, he lacks even the most basic ring skills. Tajiri makes him look somewhat competent at times but even Tajiri can't work a miracle of this magnitude.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...