BattlArts: 12th April 2009

It's been a long time since some BattlArts emerged, so I'm looking forward to this. I've actually got the whole show this time, rather than just the top few matches, courtesy of Lenny.

The opener is between Ryuji Walter and Sanchu Tsubakichi - I know neither. Ryuji Walter takes some energetic submission stuff from his opponent, before absolutely destroying him with just stream of sick strikes. This isn't good by any objective criteria, but it certainly gets a visceral reaction. Chihiro Oikawa vs. Esui is a similar experiment in watching two wrestlers I haven't seen before, as I often pick and choose my BattlArts matches and don't watch the undercard stuff as much. I thought this was fine and quite basic, Esui had her submission and Oikawa had her strikes.

Munenori Sawa/Fujita Jr Hayato vs. Tiger Shark/Akifumi Saito, was, I think, my favourite match on the card. Really, really simple match, with about 80% of it being kicks - all four guys whaling into each other until one doesn't get up. I love Hayato's attitude, and he stalks around the ring. Saito takes a quite heroic beating. Tiger Shark combines my three loves of sharks, tigers, and wrestling characters based on sharks and tigers. He has only short spells in this, but looks right at home. I loved his exchange of punches with Sawa, and his sneaky strike as Sawa winds up for a big punch.

Next, Yoshikawa vs. Yano. Lukie on DVDVR says this is an important match because its one of the first big matches between the new generation of BattlArts guys. But this was awful. Yoshikawa wasn't great, but I wasn't offended by what he was doing. Yano was appalling. I've seen people describe a person's performance as embarrassingly bad before, but I never knew what that was like until I saw this. He should never throw uppercuts. He should never do that deranged jilted lover drunk on gin attack. He should never use the ropes as a springboard. The matwork was weak - clearly, neither guy is a natural on the mat, and if I wanted to draw a positive from this match it would be that I have renewed admiration for Usuda because I really liked the matwork in his matches with both guys.

And the main event is Yamamoto/Super Tiger vs. Ishikawa/Usuda. It wasn't blowaway amazing, but certainly good enough. Everyone matches up at least once, and its hard to pick which bit was best - Yamamoto began all his sections with immense energy, and has nice long sections on the mat with both his opponents; Super Tiger lands some nasty-looking kicks - his big spinning one was right on the mark and looked great. Ishikawa and Usuda do exactly as they always do - great on the mat, plenty manly standing up. I liked the pace and the build through matwork to strikes to some high impact stuff at the end to finish off Yamamoto. Selling was good, particularly by Yamamoto and Ishikawa.