Saturday, August 26, 2017

BJW/Masahito Kakihara Produce "KAKI RIDE" (8/14/17)

Big Japan helped produced this special event as a way to support Masahito Kakihara, who has been suffering from malignant lymphoma since 2014. The event saw the return of Kakihara to the ring, in a sparring session with grapple legend, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, but everything else was fought under "UWF Rules", meaning points deducted for rope breaks, knockdowns, and in the case of Minoru Suzuki, penalties. On a whole, this was a really fun show and something I'd love to see BJW produce more often. Nothing super high end but I did have a few notes on the show. 

- In his sparring session, Kakihara tapped to Fujiwara a total of ten times. There wasn't much to this, some neat little tricks by Fujiwara, but the best moment came when Fujiwara smoked and ashed an imaginary cigar while had Kakihara in a headlock. Oh yeah.

- Minoru Tanaka managed to wrestle his best match of the year in just under 3:00 against Masakatsu Funaki. Funaki immediately whaps him in the forehead with a kick, and then they scramble around the mat with a real sense of urgency, trying to sink something in. Minoru's able to escape an armbar attempt but gets caught in a triangle and taps out.

- Tatsuo Nakano, still rocking that badass mullet, fought Daisuke Nakamura in a match that definitely over delivered. You've got Nakamura flying fancy round the mat and Nakano being Nakano just knees him in the face, dumps him with an armtrap release German, and submits him with the single leg crab. 

- Hideki Suzuki once again took former student Takuya Nomura to school on the mat, being real nasty with his forearms to the face and knees to the throat. I love the way he manipulates Nomura's arm with the wristlock in order to assert dominance. It seems Nomura's learned a thing or two from their match earlier in the year, where Suzuki basically smothered him into giving up, as he's able to avoid getting suplexed by sitting down and maintains arm control long enough to force Suzuki to the ropes. He's able to let loose a little flurry of strikes but Suzuki's too good, and the finish was swanky as fuck, as Suzuki counters out of the waistlock with a front necklock and then goes into the double arm suplex hold for the submission. 

- Rocky Kawamura (sans boxing gloves) always find a way of pissing off Minoru Suzuki. Suzuki was pretty great here. After landing a few slaps, he tries for the Gotch-style piledriver because you might as well and when Kawamura avoids it, Suzuki grabs the leg and cranks away, forcing Rocky to the ropes. When Rocky uses a jujigatame on Suzuki and doesn't let go after Minoru makes the ropes, the "oh no you didn't" look on Suzuki's face is fantastic. He tries to choke out Rocky, then starts kicking, stomping, and headbutting away, receiving a couple of yellow cards from the ref. Rocky fires off a few jabs but Suzuki's able to snatch an arm and wrench in the wakigatame for the submission. 

- Naomichi Marufuji doesn't have a whole lot of experience wrestling under "UWF Rules" and when he keeps revisiting the ropes on the ground, it becomes obvious that the only way he's going to beat Takaku Fuke is via strikes. He is able to secure a keylock but that's about as close as he gets to submitting Fuke. In the end, Fuke starts laying in the slaps and knees in the corner and out of nowhere, Marufuji connects with the Koo for the KO victory. Cool shorts, Maru. 

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