Big Mouth Loud!

There's a whole shit load of Big Mouth Loud on YouTube, maybe the entirety of its brief run, all uploaded on the one channel by some generous soul. So I watched a bunch of it and wrote some words.


Kazunari Murakami v Katsuyori Shibata (Big Mouth Loud, 9/11/05)

Pretty short for the main event of your debut show, but they played the hits you expected them to and it was fine for what it was. And really, do you want these two going half an hour anyway? In some ways they're fairly similar, at least in that they'll throw brutal strikes and stare you down with undisguised contempt. Murakami's not that much older, but a lot of what he does feels like the blueprint for a lot of what Shibata does. Naturally there was a goodly amount of brutal strikes and undisguised contempt, but they threw in a few really cool little touches to boot. I think my favourite spot was when Shibata drilled him with the penalty kick, then when he tried it again straight away Murakami caught his leg. Murakami stood up and really cocked the fist back for a right hook, then as Shibata covered his face and head Murakami swung that same arm downward into a huge dragon screw. They both cracked each other in the jaw, stood on each other's head, and even the macho dick-swinging strike exchange worked because of who they are. I'll probably check out all the Murakami from BML over time and this was a decent start.


Yoshiaki Fujiwara v Minoru Suzuki (Big Mouth Loud, 3/22/06)

Fifteen years after their match in Fujiwara's own promotion, the old man looks like he's barely lost a step. Even at a brisk 11 minutes this had a little bit of everything. The opening stretch is full of tight and gritty matwork like you expect, including a flash armbar three seconds in as Suzuki shoots for the early takedown. As you watch Fujiwara throughout the decades you get the sense he'll probably be able to do this kind of thing into his 80s (I mean he's already doing it into his 70s). Then Suzuki throws a kick to a downed Fujiwara, talking a little shit while he's at it. Fujiwara comes up smiling, rams Suzuki in the cheek bone with a headbutt, and for the next few minutes we get some super fun horse shit. Suzuki bonks Fujiwara's head off the turnbuckle bolt to no effect and then checks the bolt to make sure Fujiwara's cranium hasn't damaged it. Fujiwara backs him into the corner and peppers him with a few blows, but Suzuki keeps shit talking and Fujiwara fixes him with this amazing "you always were a little prick" grin. I've never really cared one way or the other for Suzuki's shtick but I do love seeing how Fujiwara reacts to his old student's nonsense. All those goofy faces with the tongue out, slapping him just to push the old man's buttons, and yet Fujiwara continues to go about his business. Similarly Suzuki has a point to prove, even if it's to himself and nobody else. Great bit where Fujiwara has him in a kneebar and, even though you can tell it sucks to be on the receiving end of, Suzuki won't give him the satisfaction of showing it. He doesn't know when to shut up, either. So Fujiwara just grins and wrenches the fuck out of it and Suzuki has to scramble for the ropes. The fight over the Fujiwara armbar at the end ruled as well and this was just really fun stuff overall.


Yuki Ishikawa v Hiroyuki Ito (Big Mouth Loud, 4/19/06)

It's pretty awesome that this match even exists. Ito had that MOTDC with Tamura in U-Style and there was the first iteration of this match-up in the same promotion, but then U-Style rode off into the night like a beautiful dream and our young prodigy went with it. Except apparently he didn't! I've only seen smatterings of BML before and I guess I missed the part about Ito coming in for a few shows. The U-Style match between these two was good so naturally I expected the same here, and in actual fact I thought this was even better. Nobody in history takes a hellish beating like Ishikawa and this was all about the young stud trying to prove his metal against the king. Ishikawa is the human embodiment of two dollar steak and takes half a dozen outrageous head kicks in this. Ito's kicks look equal parts pretty and lethal, thrown at warp speed and landing square in the jaw or temple. There was one point where it looked like Ishikawa might've been smiling, probably reminiscing about the good old days when he was taking this sort of beating on a bi-nightly basis. There was some real nice scrambling here as well, usually when Ito would try one kick too many and Ishikawa would catch him. That's not to say Ishikawa wasn't throwing bombs, because he was and on one occasion I thought he might have actually KOd Ito legit (turns out Ito merely sold it to perfection), it's just that with Ishikawa you know he's always in with the grappler's chance. If anybody can grab a submission from anywhere it's Ishikawa. This was a cracking little bout.