The Viktor Kruger show! I don't know how many diehard Viktor Kruger fans there are among us but we may have found the perfect match for that particular demographic. This might be the most menacing he's ever looked. I mean he usually looks menacing anyway given his size, but I don't remember him USING that size the way he did here, looking as imposing as he did and honestly just deciding to thump the daylights out of people. He was throwing folk around and drilling them with kicks, one or two that caught Otsuka flush in the sternum like a sledgehammer. His team were like a Battlarts Kaientai doing lots of rope-running triple teams where Funaki and Ono would do a quick elbow drop and Kruger would come steaming in with a legdrop, or Kruger would grab a camel clutch and lean all the way into it while Ono and Funaki would hit a running dropkick to the face. Otsuka was the recipient of much of this, come to think of it. He did give as good as he got though and his giant swing on Kruger was really cool. The big man paying him in kind later was pretty great because at the end of the day when you're that much bigger than everyone else why wouldn't you swing them around by the legs? Ono was blitzing people with kicks and had one incredible burst on the mat with Otsuka. It was quick, sudden, and made you realise those two are a match made in heaven. An extended heat segment would've made this even better overall but what we did get was good stuff.
Yuki Ishikawa & Tekeshi Ono v Katsumi Usuda & Naohiro Hoshikawa (Battlarts, 6/27/97)
Well here's another file for that Takeshi Ono all-time top 30 case. As a match this wasn't anything mindblowingly special or whatever, but Ono was tremendous as a skinny violent dickhead being a plague upon Usuda and Hoshikawa. Ishikawa and Usuda start out clean, yet as soon as their exchange nears Ono's corner you can see what sort of mood he's in. He grabs Usuda from the apron and starts choking him over the ropes so Ishikawa tags him because I guess he couldn't be bothered trying to rein him in on the night. Sometimes you can just tell when you're about to be chasing rainbows and I don't think Ishikawa could be bothered. As soon as Ono comes in he's winging kicks and punches and really that was what he did the whole match, regardless of whether he was the legal man or not. If someone got near him there's a good chance they were getting hit. Ishikawa and Usuda had a gorgeous exchange later where Usuda rolled through on a full nelson into a kneebar, and Ishikawa didn't look to be in immediate danger but Ono came in and volleyed Usuda in the head either way. Hoshikawa rolls out the ring selling his leg and Ono instantly jumps off the apron, kicks the shit out of him and throws him over about seven rows of chairs. Hoshikawa was well within his rights to punt Ono in the face later to break up a submission. In the end it maybe wouldn't have mattered if Ono had been less of a cheating prick but I'm sure Usuda took great pleasure in tapping him out. He got what he deserved, it must be said.
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