Some More Battlarts

Takeshi Ono v Katsumi Usuda (Battlarts, 7/20/00)

This was like 40% Battlarts, 60% New Japan juniors. It's not really what you want from these two, but you take that 40% when it's there and I guess if nothing else it's interesting seeing how they approach the 60%. There's a kind of novelty aspect to it. It's a little experimental. I don't know man, you want Aquemini André 3000 but at this point you take what you can get and even The Love Below had 'A Life in the Day of Benjamin André.' Ono was actually really fun dicking it up and working full rudo. He went after Usuda's leg for a spell and would hold on longer than necessary on rope breaks, then he went after the arm and approached that the same way. In between he even raked Usuda's eyes across the ropes. He was visibly pulling a lot of his shots though, his punches mostly grazing and his kicks thrown with less mustard, some of them at three quarter speed. Usuda was doing the same so maybe they just decided they wanted to get through this show with all their teeth for a change? Considering Usuda was pulling double duty on the card it's hard to blame them. And yet we will, because we are the harshest of critics. Usuda channeling Fujiwara for a few minutes there was cool, at least. He rolled out the headstand counter to the Boston Crab and even followed up with some Fujiwara-style headbutts, rocking all the way back before delivering the blow. It's hard to complain about Takeshi Ono footage being available on the internet.


Yuki Ishikawa & Mohammed Yone v Mitsuya Nagai & Ryuji Hijikata (Battlarts, 7/20/00)

Nothing blowaway, but it had its moments. Hijikata works more like a pro-style junior than a shoot-style junior, though he hits hard and his matwork is pretty sharp. A couple times Ishikawa seemed to leave himself open while Hijikata was in the process of grabbing a hammerlock or some such, but when they got to the striking it looked more convincing. There was a cool bit of selling from Hijikata as well where he went dead weight after getting caught flush, but Yone didn't seem to have any idea what to do with it and so he just stomped him a bunch. There wasn't much to the Nagai/Ishikawa exchanges, which is a shame because they've had some decent ones before and Ishikawa against a crowbar is always fun.


Carl Greco v Naoyuki Taira (Battlarts, 7/20/00)

This was Greco at his suffocating best. He dominated most of this with his grappling and at times it was hard to see Taira having a lifeline. When it looked like he might be able to at least bring the fight to its feet - where he'd conceivably have more chance of doing something - Greco would grab a cravate from his own back and twist Taira back to the mat. It's not even that Taira is useless on the ground -- he has some moments and works his way into the mount nicely at one point, it's just that Greco is in full demon mode on the night and that'll be a struggle for anyone. Towards the end we even got to see him unload with some knee combos so maybe Taira doesn't have an advantage on the feet either. There were a couple rope running sequences that felt a wee bit jarring given the previous ten minutes, but I don't think I've ever seen a cross body score a nearfall in Battlarts before, and I suppose you could look at it as Taira having to get especially creative just to weather the Greco storm. Taira had a quietly fun year in 2000 and Greco being quietly awesome in general is kind of his thing. 


Yuki Ishikawa v Katsumi Usuda (Battlarts, 7/20/00)

This was more like it from Usuda. At a shade over ten minutes it wasn't an epic, but it didn't need to be because ten minutes of Ishikawa v striker who's trying to kick his head off will almost never not work. Ishikawa spent the majority of this on the defensive and if Usuda was going easy with his strikes in the first match he'd ditched that idea by this one. I guess Ishikawa had peen paying attention earlier because a bunch of his counters were geared towards picking apart Usuda's leg. It forced Usuda to vary approach a little and so he went back to those Fujiwara headbutts. There was a great sequence where he was frantically trying to wriggle out of a kneebar, Ishikawa continually shifting his weight in order to roll with the momentum until Usuda manages to finally squirm his way into grabbing a cross armbreaker. I thought Usuda mostly did fine selling the leg even as he was hurling kicks at Ishikawa's face and head, and of course Ishikawa on the ropes, trying to beat the count while continually being bombarded with violence, all of that ruled. I've seen Usuda break out the spinning back fist as an exclamation point on a wild kick flurry twice in the last two days now and it really is an awesome wrinkle I never noticed before.