This sort of felt like Ishikawa's version of Fujiwara versus some bland kickpad junior. Ishikawa IS the spiritual successor, after all. They even had a headbutt exchange but unlike Fujiwara it appears Ishikawa's head isn't made entirely of vibranium (he does not lose that particular exchange, however). Ishikawa gave the young'un quite a lot and to be fair to him Tanaka held up his end well. He kicked hard and snappy and his submission attempts looked really sharp. I actually wished they went a few more minutes because it was starting to get really good, but I guess Ishikawa snapping Tanaka's arm out of nowhere was as fitting a Fujiwara tribute as you're likely to get.
Daisuke Ikeda, Alexander Otsuka & Satoshi Yoneyama v Takeshi Ono, Katsumi Usuda & Minoru Tanaka (Battlarts, 12/25/96)
Six-man tags are a bit of an underutilised match type in Battlarts, which is a shame because they have all the ingredients for something spectacular. I mean the '08 match is one of the five best matches of the decade. This wasn't at that level but it was a pretty awesome Boxing Day feast. It took Ikeda approximately ten seconds to come in illegally and stomp on someone's neck and that basically set the tone for what was to come. There were about fifty amazing moments, my favourite of which might've been team Ono coming in like a pack of hungry hyenas and kicking the living shit out of Ikeda. Otsuka was a fucking dynamo in this and threw some of his best suplexes ever, most of them by just lifting dead weight and dropping that person on their neck. Ono takes them in this awesome limp-bodied sort of way where he'll land all awkward on his clavicle or elbow, then Ikeda will pick him up like an empty tracksuit and powerbomb him on his tailbone. Yone at this stage wasn't great - Yone at no stage has been great, I suppose - but his rolling koppo kick will absolutely crush someone's forehead and this time the unfortunate recipient was Ono, who it must be said was having a really shitty day. A couple minutes being clipped out will always be a bastard of a thing but this ruled all ends up.
Takeshi Ono v Alexander Otsuka (Battlarts, 3/13/97)
This match-up rules so much. Ono is the gold standard for skinny crowbar bastards and while he never landed any particularly vile shots he was always probing, always looking for that opening, always dangerous. Otsuka did what Otsuka will do and tried to shoot in for takedowns and suplexes. It sometimes worked and led to Ono being dropped on his neck, but then sometimes it didn't and led to him getting high kicked in the ear. You really need to weigh those odds when you're in there with Ono. I liked their urgency as the match went on, how Ono would try to pounce before Otsuka even made it back to his feet from a count, and how Otsuka would immediately follow Ono outside when he tried to take a breather. The build to Ono's octopus stretch was awesome. He threw a bunch of testing little jabs that almost looked preposterous compared to his usual strikes. They had nowhere near the mustard on them you expect and you'd be forgiven for thinking he'd decided to take it easy on the night, but then as soon as Otsuka let his guard drop for that split second Ono shot in and wrapped him up in a straightjacket. I wish these guys wrestled six hundred times.
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