Takuya Nomura vs. Fuminori Abe (BASARA, 11/26/19)

A 10+ minute slugger with tons of cool stuff you'd expect to see between two spunky astronauts. A little grapple action, plenty of cheeky shots, some neat counters and transitions from Abe - love his dragon screw legwhip and his simple transition into the front necklock. Of course, the fakeout slaps are great, too. Nomura's real shitty to Abe on the ground and throws plenty of suplexes, including a gnarly half nelson that Abe no sells. They ramp up the baseball punches and headbutts during the finishing stretch, until Nomura slaps off an attempt, dragon suplexes Abe and KOs him with the high kick. Nothing fancy, nothing bloated -- just two friends wrasslin' and kicking the shit out of each other.

Ikuto Hidaka vs. Ryota Nakatsu (BASARA, 1/21/16)

I loved the underdog story and nuances of this match. A respectful Ryota holds back with the early strikes and Hidaka encourages the fire. Hidaka cinches his teeth into Ryota's leg early on, hitting a nasty dragon screw legwhip in the corner. While Ryota sells on the outside, Hidaka asks "what is this weakness?" and proceeds to dropkick his leg. Great desperation struggle over the figure-four leglock and finally, Nakatsu puts some heat behind his trikes. He hits a single-leg kick, a running apron PK and a second PK before going after Hidaka's arm. The roll-through Fujiwara armbar was a nice spot. The legwork is consistent, the selling is great, with Nakatsu clinging to Hidaka's leg to prevent the Shawn Capture.  He captures Hidaka with the armbar and sends Hidaka scrambling for the ropes. Awesome spot where Ryota goes to block a kick and Hidaka straight-up punches him in the face. The finishing stretch was believable and spirited, and although Hidaka won, Nakatsu came away looking like a million bucks.