Craig's Puro Matches of the Year

As the DVDVR 2008 puro countdown has now begun, I thought I'd post my ballot. Lots of Battlarts, as expected, a lot of indie stuff, and a couple of things that I idiosyncratically like more than all other humans (numbers 5, 6 and 9, in particular). Will probably do a Zero1 and a K-Dojo best of list seperately at some point, when I've finished all the shows.

1. Ishikawa/Sawa/Otsuka vs. Ikeda/Usuda/Super Tiger II, July 26th, BattlArts

2. Sawa/Hidaka vs. Ishikawa/Yoshikawa, August 31st, BattlArts

3. Akiyama/Rikio vs Sasaki/Nakajima, April 27th, NOAH

4. Mashimo/Madoka vs. Shinobu/MEN's Teioh, May 23rd, BJPW

5. Hidaka vs Mochizuki, June 26th, Zero1

6. Super Tiger II vs. Alexander Otsuka, August 31st, BattlArts
7. Super Tiger II vs. Yuki Ishikawa, October 25th, BattlArts
8. Yoshitsune vs. Fujita Jr. Hayato, December 12th, M-Pro.
9. Madoka vs. Mashimo, July 12th, K-Dojo

10. Tanaka/Hidaka vs Kanemoto/Taguchi, March 2nd, Zero1
11. Misawa vs Morishima, March 2nd, NOAH

12. Nishimura vs. Suwama, June 28th, AJPW
13. Ishikawa vs. Greco, June 1st, BattlArts

14. Usuda vs. Yano, November 16th, BattlArts

15. Kobashi/Honda/Taniguchi vs Morishima/Marufuji/Sugiura, Februay 21st, NOAH

16. Minoru/Mochizuki vs Sawa/Hidaka, May 29th, Zero1

17. Tenzan vs. Iizuka, October 13th, NJPW

18. Tanaka vs Kanemoto, April 13th, NJPW

19. Sekimoto vs. M. Sasaki, February 17th, BJPW

20. T.Sasaki/Miyamoto vs. Kasai/Numazawa, June 23rd, BJPW