Hideki Suzuki & Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Shuji Ishikawa & Kohei Sato (BJW, 1/2/18)

We get our annual Twin Towers tag match to kick off the new year and of course, it delivers. Maybe not on the same level as last year's blood-spattering match against Strong BJ, but it was still a “banger”. Sekimoto gets stuck between a rock and a hard place…the rock being Sato’s kicks and elbows and the hard place being…well, Ishikawa’s elbows. When he gets the hot tag to Suzuki, Hideki comes in with a bunch of suplexes, including a big release German that folds the Big Dawg in half, before and Ishikawa take each other out when the knee meets the elbow. Poor Daisuke gets put back between the rock and hard place, as the Twin Towers lay into him with knees and sandwich elbows. Ishikawa neutralizes Hideki with another gnarly elbow, allowing Sato to pin Sekimoto following the piledriver. Can’t complain about a ten minute slugfest.

Shuji Ishikawa vs. Kento Miyahara (AJPW, 8/27/17)

This was a really good match that had the potential to be fantastic had Kento Miyahara deviated from his go-to formulaic approach. I mean, you had all the Kento "ace" tropes here: the hard in-the-moment selling but convenient bouts of amnesia to shoe in his signature moves and then the final minute comeback barrage of endless knees. But it was a brutally fought match and for the most part, the conveyed struggle, fatigue and desperation on Miyahara's part was awesome, coupled with the relentless monstrosity of black trunks Shuji Ishikawa trying to destroy any chance Miyahara has of beating him. I mean, the Big Dog's yard is a truly frightening place to be cornered in. The way he just throws Miyahara throat-first onto the guardrail and proceeds to tenderize the neck like a veal cutlet, with his nasty push-up facebusters on the mat and easily the most memorable spot of the night -- the gnarly Fire Thunder Driver on the apron that was sold like absolute death by Kento.

I thought Miyahara's selling was better than his usual fare but you still have dumb spots like the no sold superplex and even dumber spots like the no sold dragon suplex. Loved the strike exchange toward the end, with an exhausted Miyahara trying to slug away with Ishikawa and Ishikawa annihilating him with that headbutt, followed by a ruthless beatdown via elbows. Wada tries to step in but Ishikawa throws him off, which allows Kento to connect with a lunging desperation headbutt. Why Ishikawa didn't go for the Giant Slam is baffling to me but instead, he tries for another pull-in knee strike and Miyahara counters with a big high knee strike...then a second...then a third...and then the arm-trap German and...it's over.

I liked the build to the arm-trap German, with Shuji either using an elbow to escape or just bursting out, but the finish felt very lackluster, especially considering all the punishment Ishikawa had put Miyahara through, including three Fire Thunder Drivers, a bunch of running knees, and a Splash Mountain Bomb. This would have been the perfect opportunity for Ishikawa to kick out of the German and force Miyahara to introduce a new finisher to his repertoire on the biggest stage of the year. But I guess if the formula ain't broke, there's no point in going back to the drawing board. This is about even with Ishikawa's title win, possibly a bit higher due to Ishikawa's savage performance, and with that, Ishikawa's Triple Crown run ends and he's free to show up in Big Japan and attempt...and I mean, attempt...to dethrone current king of technical violence, Hideki Suzuki.

Shuji Ishikawa vs. Jake Lee (6/11/17)

Jake Lee's star-making performance came against Miyahara on the opening night of the 2017 Champion Carnival. While I prefer that singles performance for Lee, this firmly established him as a player in the Triple Crown scene. He was firing on all cylinders here, getting in a stunningly large amount of offense against Ishikawa, most of which looked good -- you know, apart from whiffing on his big jumping kick by about a mile. A "Holy Shit!" moment comes early in the match when Lee narrowly escapes a powerbomb on the apron only to get German suplexed on the floor! Referee Wada smacking Lee's face, trying to get him back into the ring was an amazing little moment. Ishikawa works on Lee's neck for a bit, hitting some big elbows and a corner Russian legsweep. But after he fights for a suplex, the match turns into the Jake Lee show as he gets in a nice rush of offense against Ishikawa.

 He puts on a sleeper hold and Ishikawa climbs the ropes, falling back to momentarily stun Lee but Jake latches back on with the sleeper. He hits a nasty running knee with Ishikawa draped on the apron and an apron PK. I loved when Lee really turned up the aggression in the final quarter of the match, blasting the champ with some nasty big boots, stomping away at Ishikawa's head and shoulder in the corner and later, delivering those hand-held kicks to the arm reminiscent of Shibata against Okada. He's able to stagger Ishikawa with a big boy elbow, beautifully sold by Shuji, before kneeing him some more. He's able to execute the backdrop but it isn't enough to put the Big Dog away. After a few running knees and a Fire Thunder Driver (kicked out at one by Lee!), Ishikawa tries for the Giant Slam but Lee resists it, forcing Ishikawa to headbutt and elbow him down before finishing him with the Giant Slam. A strong performance from Lee and a solid defense for Ishikawa. 

Kento Miyahara vs. Shuji Ishikawa (AJPW, 5/21/17)

This is one of those big title match-ups in which the viewing experience would've been greatly enhanced had the end result not been spoiled. Nevertheless, if you've managed to stay spoiler-free somehow or if not, you're in for a treat. This is the Big Dog at his best and while Kento Miyahara is the same "ace" Kento we've all grown to love, with his convenient comebacks and shoehorned spots, his facial expressions are some of the best I've seen from him as Ishikawa dishes out the punishment. Ishikawa cuts off Kento's momentum early on, catching him off the apron and ramming him into the ring post. He goes to work on Kento's back, scoop slamming him onto the apron, double stomping him, even putting him in my favorite submission hold, the Texas Cloverleaf! Miyahara's in-the-moment selling is always good but when he's on offense, it can be a lapse in and out. Miyahara delivers a ton of Blackout knees in this, including one on the apron.

The match really hits its peak down the home stretch, when Kento goes for another Blackout and Ishikawa ducks it, dumping him with the release dragon suplex and hitting the running knee for a nearfall. Shuji's able to hit the Fire Thunder Driver for two but Kento counters the Splash Mountain Bomb with a rana and connects with back-to-front Blackouts, followed by the stalling German suplex hold for two. He tries to trap Ishikawa's arms for the shutdown German and even as Ishikawa fights to break out, Kento still has control of the arms, forcing Shuji to fight harder. When he breaks out, he hits a couple of knees and the Splash Mountain Bomb but the champ still kicks out! Kento's able to hit one last desperation Blackout but when he tries for the coup de grace, Ishikawa counters with another Fire Thunder Driver and puts the ace down with the Giant Slam. A well-deserved win for the Big Dog and it will be interesting to see if Miyahara can regain the title in the coming months or if Ishikawa gets a nice, lengthy reign with some fresh defenses.

Shuji Ishikawa & Kohei Sato vs. Daisuke Sekimoto & Yuji Okabayashi (BJW, 1/2/17)

Yay, the first Twin Towers/Strong BJ match of the New Year...and hopefully, the last for 2017. I love both of these teams and no doubt, they have great chemistry together and can produce awesome, hard-hitting tag matches but I don't want this to tread Strong BJ vs. Big Guns territory because these two teams clashing should feel like a special occasion. That being said, this was a perfectly enjoyable match, although I preferred their match from the Saikyou Tag League for its condensed and explosive violence. I loved the interactions between Ishikawa and Sekimoto throughout, and if I were a betting man, I'd wager that Ishikawa will challenge for the BJW World Strong Heavyweight title in the first half of 2017. Ishikawa busts out the headbutts against Sekimoto early on, which leads to Sekimoto playing the FIP to the elbow and knee bullying Twin Towers, trying to fight back with chops only to get pounded back down. We get plenty of double teams and a triple German suplex. On a side note, I'm always so amazed at how effortless Sato's Falcon Arrow looks on a big hoss like Okabayashi. I also enjoyed Okabayashi fighting off Twin Towers with alternating chops before he gets pummeled back into the corner with elbows and knees.

But let's be real, this match was forehead punishment for Sekimoto. When he's got Sato in a crab hold, Ishikawa comes in and headbutts him off. The Prison Lock with the arm-trap baby headbutts of doomed turned Sekimoto's forehead into ground beef but it wasn't until that final running shoot headbutt from Ishikawa that Sekimoto's forehead burst like a tick. Just a nasty, nasty spot. Sekimoto's draining blood as he finishes Ishikawa off with a lariat and the follow-up deadlift German suplex hold for the pin. Kind of your standard fun Strong BJ vs. Twin Towers match-up with some extra brutal headbutts from Ishikawa and great selling from Sekimoto. Best tag match of the year so far. Can't wait to see the inevitable match between Sekimoto and Ishikawa but for now, I think I'm satisfied with seeing these two teams try to kill each other. 

Shuji Ishikawa & Kohei Sato vs. Hideki Suzuki & Takuya Nomura (BJW, 12/18/16)

This match ruled! It was easily the best match on an otherwise decent Death Vegas card and it may be my favorite Japanese tag match of the year but perhaps more importantly, it served a great platform for Takuya Nomura to showcase what he’s learned over the past year. His selling was fantastic for his experience level, from his facials to the desperation in his strikes. And he gets so excited from kicking, he sometimes slips and falls. Suzuki wasn’t phoning it in either, coming in for some suplex saves. One of the things I like about Suzuki, and it showed in his early touch-and-go with Ishikawa, is the way he’s continually moving, not allowing Ishikawa a solid grip, but shifting and feeling for a weakness or an opening. Of course, Twin Towers were brutal as always and held nothing back in their exchanges with the spunky Nomura. Sato throws the best elbows in pro-wrestling and Ishikawa and Nomura working themselves into a “shoot” was awesome. Loved Ishikawa turning one of Nomura’s kicks into a stretch muffler airplane spin.

The final confrontation between Nomura and Sato was the icing on the cake. Nomura unloads on Sato with everything he has, kicking him harder and harder, his eyes wild as he’s thinking “damn, how hard do I have to kick?!” before Sato finally collapses with his spasmodic selling. Again, Nomura shows the little things he’s picked up along the way, like when he has Sato in the cross armbreaker and he grabs the leg as Sato struggles, turning it into a pin attempt. Suzuki makes a great save after Sato hits a nasty elbow and while Nomura survives the Falcon Arrow, the follow-up piledriver is enough to put the rookie phenom down for good. Post-match, Nomura says “fuck your handshake” to Ishikawa. Awesome stuff. 

Konosuke Takeshita vs. Shuji Ishikawa (DDT, 8/28/16)

The last time these two met in singles action, it was a sub-five minute match, in which Takeshita defeated Ishikawa in a short spurt of bomb-tastic offense. This match, in a lot of ways, is similar to that shorty but goody – an epic-style bombfest that was red hot right out the gate. After Ishikawa powerbombs Takeshita onto the apron early on, it becomes painfully (literally) obvious that Takeshita will have to empty the tank and tap into his reserves in order to keep the title. They go back and forth, trading strikes and throwing bombs. Takeshita gets a run of offense, including a dragon suplex and Blue Thunder Bomb, but when he tries for the deadlift German, an exhausted Ishikawa elbows his way out and hits a cool backdrop-style backbreaker onto the knees before locking in a cloverleaf hold. Ishikawa, more or less, targets the back throughout, trying to deplete Takeshita’s fiery energy. Fatigued, Takeshita tries to fight back but can’t and Ishikawa sees the weakness and looks to finish the job with a sleeper hold, transitioning into a sleeper-style slam and a running knee for a two count. 

There’s a nice call back to their tag match from earlier in the year when Takeshita tries taking him down with those cheap plastic lightsaber lariats and finally manages a wind-up lariat to level him. Takeshita nearly puts the big dog down with a deadlift German but Ishikawa won’t die. In a great moment, Takeshita goes for the arm trap but Ishikawa busts out and hits a big Fire Thunder Driver! Takeshita’s desperation to hold onto the belt is bleeding into the final stretch with his strikes, to a point where he just starts punching Ishikawa in the face! In the end, the champion’s will to survive is strong, as he takes just about everything in the big dog’s arsenal, but ultimately, Ishikawa is able to hit the Giant Slam to become the new KO-D Openweight Champion. Great finish, with both guys dog-tired but still slugging away, having poured out everything into this match. Hard-hitting action from start to finish, with very little downtime. I’m a little sad to see Takeshita’s reign end, as I was hoping they would build to a rematch between he and Endo, but I’m a big fan of Ishikawa so we’ll see what he does with the belt. Super fun match!

Shuji Ishikawa & Kohei Sato vs. Daichi Hashimoto & Kazuki Hashimoto (BJW, 2/7/14)

This was a fun spitfire underdog match with tons of heavy striking for all your heavy striking needs. You've got Surfer Sato destroying K.Hash with big bad elbows, Ishikawa manhandling D.Hash with a stretch muffler. Twin Towers do a good job of bullying K.Hash, inflicting a little punishment and making the quick tags. Effective. Little D.Hash gets in a bunch of snappy kicks and an especially head-droppy back suplex on Sato. I really liked Ishikawa's arm-trap headbutts into the arm-trap suplex. After K.Hash finally topples Sato, he and Daichi trade kicks before Kazuki lands a nasty PK. The ankle hold didn't make much sense for this kind of match as there was no real sense of danger. The failed submission attempt leads to a final onslaught by Sato, including his piledriver and a German suplex hold for three. Good stuff. 

Daisuke Sekimoto & Yuji Okabayashi vs. Shuji Ishikawa & Kohei Sato (BJW, 5/28/15)

Time limit draws can be tiresome. The pacing can be off, there's often a lot of needless filler to eat up minutes and the action can feel subdued. Not here though. All four guys put their bodies through hell and back for the duration of the match. Uber-stiff and brutal at times, it was well-paced and organic, sometimes feeling a little too real, as both Sato and Okabayashi get busted open the hard way. Things got a little chaotic and messy at times, but it never got out of control and they always reeled the action back in. I liked the early struggle by Sato with the cross armbreaker and Sekimoto trying to power out to his feet, forcing Sato to re-think his strategy and attack the leg. 

Okabayashi was a beast in this and the strike exchanges between he, Sato and Ishikawa were nuts -- those Sato elbow shots were especially nasty. There's one point in particular where Okabayashi blocks Ishikawa's headbutt with his hand and then nearly lariats him out of his boot. But Ishikawa would exact his revenge toward the end of the match hitting one of the gnarliest headbutts on Okabayashi I've seen. 

Sekimoto did a great job selling the beat down Twin Towers issued out. No matter how hard he fought back, they kept swatting him back down. At one point, they block his double lariat attempt and pound him with stereo headbutts. There's two different lay out spots with all four men but they didn't necessarily feel shoehorned it, more like a steady build toward the bomb fests. By end of this thing, Sato and Okabayashi are on wobbly knees slugging it out in desperation. Okabayashi hits one final powerful lariat, trying in vain to get the pin over and over again before the time limit expires. What a tag team match and a modern strong style classic! 

Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Shuji Ishikawa (BJW, 3/31/15)

Good Lord, this match. I never had a chance to view this last year for whatever reason but wow, what a manly modern spectacle. Sloppy at times and a wee bit overkill, it wasn't the elusive "perfect match" but it felt perfectly organic and brutal. I mean, everything looked brutal in execution. And it has one of the best false finishes in recent memory. Sekimoto is the yoked workhorse who won't lay down for the champ. Great heart and energy, great selling for the most part, especially in the facials. He wrestles with this sense of urgency throughout. I loved the early suicide dive after Ishikawa gets extra saucy with his elbow shots. And Ishikawa is such a great super bully champ in this, constantly cutting Sekimoto off at every opportunity and just laying into him fully with everything in his arsenal. The full nelson ring post smash was nuts and I genuinely felt bad for Sekimoto's head and neck as Ishikawa went took him to Murder Town. At one point, Ishikawa's got him in a full nelson lock, and Sekimoto is screaming and powering his way out and Ishikawa headbutts any hope he had of escaping to hell. 

One minor grievance: Sekimoto's Scorpion Deathlock looks like shit and it always seems to come out of nowhere. There's no logistical build to it. Anyway, he has such a great crab hold that looks way more devastating and makes sense for his style of offense. The final stretch of this thing was pretty epic. After Ishikawa goes on a mini-run after kiboshing another Sekimoto comeback, Sekimoto clobbers him with a lariat counter to the running knee, They trade suplexes, clash lariats, and then Sekimoto pulls away with his meat cleaver chops, a gamengiri, a lariat, and a big deadlift German suplex hold for HUGE nearfall. The crowd is fully invested at this point, Ishikawa's mouth is bloody, Sekimoto can't believe it. We get the dying breath of the great champ here, as Ishikawa pulls out every brain-scrambling move in the book and still can't beat Sekimoto. In a great moment during the final slapoff, Ishikawa unleashes a flurry of slaps and the only way Sekimoto can stop him is to just punch him in the face. Ishikawa gets a last gasp one count after a lariat, but a second lariat and a deadlift German suplex hold are too much. Doesn't get much better than this when it comes to modern strong style.