Ma Stump Puller

Kakihara was low-key a VERY strong worker in All-Japan, especially in being able to carry the load in matches with guys who theoretically should've completely outclassed him: guys like Kobashi, Ogawa, Kawada, etc. He even has a pretty kick-ass match with Inoue at one point. Just a all-rounder in terms of utility, being able to be slotted in practically anywhere and do well with what he's given. His strengths come mostly from his UWF work (which while hit and miss, was pretty good for that era) but he just doesn't have a lot to work with beyond All-Japan and some good UWF stints. It's a little unfair given his traumatic injury basically cuts his career short before he could've perhaps done more, but wear and tear in general was really effecting his quality to work to what he was in prior years, so either way I don't think his later career has a lot of big upsides worth bringing up. He's good, just his peak was way too short and wasn't setting the world on fire anyway. He got better at pro-wrestling faster than Takayama did but Taka eventually surpasses him by 1999/2000 when he's just on a tear with NO FEAR.

This is a really interesting point to make. I know some people will have their own preferences for how they rank wrestlers and whatnot, but charisma is always going to play a factor in selection for the vast majority of people given how incredibly important it is. It's not just promos or character work; it's also getting people invested in what you can do in-ring and how capable someone can be in storytelling a narrative throughout. With a guy like Sydal, I felt like he was always a gatekeeper: great hand, can consistently give out good work in a number of different areas, but ultimately can't really do anything beyond that. He's kinda like a cruiserweight Ziggler where all the pieces should come together, but they really never do. We can moan about guys like Hogan all day and night for dozens of reasons, but his ability to make you pay attention to him in-ring and be more memorable means that the vast majority of people can cite his top matches off the cuff despite his limitations, because he can get investment out of his work. Doing big bumps is one thing, but making them MATTER is another. Rey would take big bumps but he'd sell his ass off and his comebacks were almost always timed perfectly to get the crowd worked up. As you say, Sydal just kinda doesn't have that inviting factor in if that makes any sense

Good in short bursts: he's a solid act when it comes to the big spots and innovative work in that regard. It's just everything else that tends to drag him down in terms of his overall style. He's got a big tendency to drag matches down into plodding technical work, which almost always feels like filler between the cool stuff. His best matches for me are when his opponent (s) is able to get him away from that and instead work on more interesting stuff instead, like selling his ass off after a stiff headbutt makes him bleed like mad or beating down a underdog. He's someone who needs to be led to those kind of matches through, because him alone tends to drift into some meandering exchanges. FAR better in tags as a result typically because of that factor He'd get a top 100 slot in terms of longevity (like he's 50+ and he's STILL having good performances for his age) but in general, I don't see it.

Nagata beats out Hashimoto when it comes to consistency by a country mile through, and I'd say he's FAR better at carrying lesser talents given his big title reigns typically had him have to carry some downright bad guys to presentable stuff. Obviously if you were to weigh them by charisma or just raw intensity that would be a whole other deal but Nagata has a LOT to work with, and most of it is arguably past his prime

I'd stick to his pro-wrestling stuff. Just from my experience UWF Taka is mostly pretty dire from what I've watched. There's a few solid bouts I could recommend but a lot of it is just sub-par. Through he does get better with time (he has a pretty good match with Kakihara in the short lived KINGDOM promotion) it's a definite low in his career.

Up: Tiger Mask: I had already gone through a fair chunk of his career but seeing his short-lived UWF 1.0. stint has really brightened his case for me. Legit world-class striker and always seems to deliver his end of any match he's in, even when wrestling random World of Sport and American job guys. He hasn't really ever had a bad match that was because of him alone. Yoshinari Ogawa: Legitimately half-carrying NOAH's Jr division at points from his singles and tag work. Every year has him somehow pull out a bunch of pretty solid matches out of his hat despite his neck injury and age. Looking at his older stuff, I keep finding great bit-part roles out of him despite being with guys who should theoretically just completely overshadow him. I think seeing him having a great exchange with a young rookie Kanemaru in a 6-man tag with the likes of Kobashi and Akiyama being around says a lot about how well polished a wrestler he is beyond the moves. Kendo Kashin: His modern work is mostly dire but I'm actually half-shocked by how great he was when he gave a damn. He was never anyone I'd say would be full of hidden gems but his ability to play a prick spoiler heel that can steal matches away in a blink of a eye is a very entertaining gimmick for the time. Pair that up with a strong rookie career before the Kashin gimmick gets set up and a fairly good Muto-era AJPW run (when it matters) and I think there's a lot more discussion about the guy being on here than you think. It helps that he can carry matches that shouldn't be even worth a sniff into something half-decent. Masakatsu Funaki: A true master of the sub-10 minute match, but has shown with his current NOAH National stint that he can still go pretty great for his age, combined with a lot of simple, smart technical wrestling alongside some smooth, stiff strikes. It helps that his format is a breath of fresh air compared to the "epic" format that's grown stale immensely over the years. Down: Satoshi Kojima: While I still think Koji has a decent enough career, his limitations when it comes to structuring matches and carrying individuals become really clear after a while. He can't get truly great matches from good opponents, and he's always going back on his old, inconsistent selling days as more than a clutch than anything else. Him getting pumped up for a comeback is pretty cool the first time you've seen it, but he does this way too often to be of any novelty. Yoshihiro Takayama: This is mostly referring to his UWF work, which is.....kinda dire in places. He's consistently the weaker man of whoever he's wrestling with and unless he's paired with someone who can drag a great match out of him, his sloppy strikes and downright clunky motions at points make him someone who is mostly having alright but very middling matches, even all the way up to the post-NJPW/WAR invasion angles. Him getting jobbed out to Jado was a definite low-point, as was him getting legit potato'd by a angry Bad News. Trevor Murdoch: Despite a fairly good title chase for the NWA title, his actual run was shockingly bad and he just struggled to get a actual good match against anyone in particular. His limitations are very overt and giving him the main event scene didn't help things at all. Maybe it's just NWA's mostly shoddy roster but there was definitely a lot of issues in terms of actually having a match that looked like it mattered. Rusher Kimura: I still don't get the hype around this guy and watching more of his supposed "prime" just makes me even more confused. He's a good brawler for the time but his matches against some top-notch talent like Jumbo and co are almost always underwhelming and frankly boring in places. He's benefited from his reputation as a bloody cage fighter a ton but the matches that are still intact don't show anything that hasn't been surpassed a dozen or so times already. I feel like him being this legendary super performer is mostly because of hype and him being paired with guys like Mighty Inoue and Momota, who were actually fairly talented beyond their more-well known comedy leanings. Either way, I don't get it.

Would also suggest a few more guys I've found recently: S級7位 キング Has a ton of fairly random but interesting Japanese fancams and obscure matches. Wrestlistory Weird one: been uploading purely WWF stuff for five years before dumping out a ton of very early UWF 1.0. fancams and undercard outings. Some really interesting insights here. Jolana Doe Youtube channel of the awesome PuroArchive, who uploads and preserves lots of completely unheard of and very rare Japanese indie shows. A lot of stuff that isn't online at all....until now. This is already on the OP but Archive.com is not the easiest site to watch stuff on. John Gjoni Posts a lot of random stuff, but namely American indies and Japanese promotions like IGF, FMW, etc.

His gimmick restricted his ring abilities a lot I feel. Watch his Unabomber SMW or PWFG work and he's a LOT more varied than you'd expect: seeing him doing a springboard leg drop in the match with Undertaker was bonkers. That said, for a guy his size and weight, being able to do stuff like top rope shit is most assuredly not easy, let alone doing it consistently for 15+ years. Longevity wise, he stays the same in terms of quality until about 2012, with his last truly solid match being the 2014 one with Bryan (through how much of that you can apply to his opponent is up for debate....) but after that he's mostly just bad and sluggish, with even Cena (who's usually quite good at monster bouts) struggling to get anything good out of him. If you made a WWE only list, he'd definitely be on it given his numerous memorable feuds, segments and general consistency over the years, with his best work being the early 2000's where he was less constrained by the gimmick/trashy booking (mostly....) and was actually having a lot of enjoyable work. The catch-wrestling match he has with Big Show on a random 2006 RAW is a definite highlight as well lol.

I don't find his style all that impressive and his actual host of matches that I can honestly say were made strong in the first place by him alone are few and far between. He's not bad, but his cutesy pseudo-MMA stuff just makes me wince half the time because it's just kinda goofy sometimes in how he executes certain things and how overtly flashy it doesn't need to be. He's tolerable in tags but I could never find him as someone that I can't think of at least 150 wrestlers that just completely lap him in terms of quality. His selling is all over the place as well unless the other guy is roping him in hard to do so.

Probably one of the bigger ones to watch out for in the next few years. She's already great given her resume, it's just a matter of if that momentum continues or not.

Bro this guy was a godsend on the IGF cards, Christ. One of the few guys who was having consistently good matches with whoever Inoki wanted to have one, even random lads like the (fairly limited at the time) Tadao Yasuda, a old Tank Abbott or lads like the unfortunately named Predator or Jerome Le Banner, he's at least getting a decent or entertaining match out of those guys. Frankly I'd stick him on purely for handling that but I can acknowledge his wasted potential as well, but that's mostly because he was overpushed and wasn't really challenged much because Inoki kept sticking him in Goldberg-style streaks for the most part.

Honestly is way better than Suzuki when it comes to late-game showings. Suzuki tries to do "big match" formula bouts a lot and it tends to backfire and make him look bad as he's mostly a filler work guy (don't know either to blame him or NJPW's general structure for that) with honestly not a lot of tricks up his sleeve to achieve such a effect. Funaki just does short-ass matches and it WORKS so well for him because of how he wrestles in general, being able to work a lot of intensity alongside legit super-athletic mat-crawling and strikes. There's no real predictability to his formula as any submission or bomb could realistically catch him the win. It does say a lot when his Triple Crown after 2 or so years back in the ring is leagues better than Suzuki's run despite Suzuki having worked way longer by comparison. Funaki is also quite well versed when it comes to carrying guys to compelling matches if need be. A lot of his indie matches are against random dudes who are competent but not great, and he's able to balance his style out to allow them the room to work their stuff in while obviously being booked very strong given his rep all while working mostly sub-10 minute matches. Getting a old and battered 49 year old Otsuka to a half-decent match while his ARM WAS BROKEN was a bonkers feat when I watched it and I still can't believe they let that go after that happens, but to the point where Otsuka is hurling Funaki around with German suplexes and Giant Swings. You gotta see that to believe it. Go back to his really early stuff and see him working a pretty good series of matches with a green Shamrock back in PWFG despite working huge ass length matches with the guy. I've never taken a huge deep dive into the guy but there's plenty of quality work out there alongside a fairly fun NOAH stint at the moment to consider him on the top 100.

No problem! Here's some of the dates for stuff I'd recommend in terms of specific Triangle of Power matches: W/ Albright vs Misawa/Akiyama (the upset that gets them going) (18.05.1997) W/ Albright vs GET (Summer Action Series 25.07.1997) W/ Albright and Lacrosse vs Holy Demon Army + Honda (Summer Action Series 22.08.1997) W/ Albright vs Misawa/Akiyama (Summer Action Series 26.08.1997) W/ Albright and Lacrosse vs Duncum Jr/Smith + King (October Giant Series 21.10.1997) W/ Albright vs Holy Demon Army (Excite Series 28.02.1998) W/ Albright vs New Triangle of Power (Takayama/Kakihara) (25th Anniversary 01.05.1998) W/ Hawkfield vs Inoue/Omori (Super Power Series 12.06.1998: Doc hard carries this one)

People tend to credit his mid-90's work as sensational (which it is) but I'd also direct people to his late 90's and even his early 2000's work before the first cancer scare. He goes through a very obvious decline from just how intense he was in his prime but I found that has been exaggerated to a great extent given the sheer wealth of quality matches he puts on after that timeframe. Him and Ace have a pretty good run as big tag threats in 96, a awesome stint in helping Albright get legit in the Triangle of Power stable during 97/98, concluding with a REALLY solid match against GET that arguably overshadows the Taue/Misawa main event that night. Even if he does start to slow in the years afterwards, he's still very well done when it counts: multiple big brawls with the Demon Army, a omega underrated Southern brawl with Omori in 2000, capping off with a surprisingly strong series of matches with 2001 Muto, getting one of his better matches during that year's Champion Carnival. It's nothing that'll make him go from a top 50 to a top 10 overnight, but it definitely helps to reinforce his standing and show his qualities weren't just grounded in the era he was in.

Him and Tiger Mask work a good European Rules match in 95 that was surprisingly fun to watch and played off their prior encounters pretty well. Not a sensational top 10 ballot pick for his best hits but a solid outing for a guy who mostly fell off the radar after the cancer scare. Might be a rogue choice if you are especially keen of the 80's Jr heavyweight scene. Certainly a great opponent for Tiger Mask and remained so arguably up until his very last few matches despite his rust, even if he always kinda awkwardly fit in with his opponents (and at times could drag with his long technical work) but his heel work was always very snug and worked with a wide range of opponents. Never anything sensational for the most part but a very competent worker that proved he could fit into basically any slot needed. If consistency is the big ranking for a top 100, he might just squeeze on.

Honestly Big E might have a better chance of getting on than Kofi. That's not a slight on either man but I've never been particularly convinced he's this amazing wrestler: more so sub-par but carryable to great stuff under the right conditions. Lots of fun little agile spots and some fairly good matches under his belt but his main belt run put me to sleep more often than not. Yes, part of that is down to booking, but when you are working with guys like AJ Styles, Owens, Samoa Joe and getting "it's fine...I guess?" quality out of good PPV slots, there's a bigger issue underlying there. Good wrestler but not a top 100 by a fair margin.

I think Joe's a good exercise in how much you count prime performances against overall. Joe in RoH, those few golden years in the mid-2000's were easily some of the best in the world, not just in the US. The guy had it all in my book and then some, having good to great matches against virtually anyone through the door, at times he'd just get paired with random lads out of the blue and still knock it out of the park. He joins TNA and the hype is still going: he's got a undefeated streak, he's getting incredibly over with the crowds....then things start to slowly unravel. His Japan return in 2007 is a failure, being laughed out of the building after trying to get a presence in NOAH, TNA slowly shove him down the card and his demotivation becomes VERY clear after a while. Add that up alongside a lot of injuries and the dude drops off a cliff. He's still very good when he's on the game (I think he got a actually pretty solid bout out of Nash once?) but he falls into a black hole by the time 2012 or so hits. His WWE run is....mixed, but I think they made the best out of the guy given his injury issues really never stopped when he got there: if anything, they probably got worse with the quantity of matches. I'd still put him on a hypothetical top 100, but at the same time it's quite hard to place him proper as this thread definitely makes clear. I will say that people are somewhat sleeping on his ZERO-ONE stuff through, for a one year rookie he makes sure that doesn't look like the case

I'd probably have to put him on just for getting shoot Takayama to good matches consistently. He's got a good sense of pacing and he knows when to turn the heat up in a fight to really get the drama going, which aids him a lot when he's trying to make Takayama's Frankenstein-lite stance and mostly bad kicks look convincing

I'm a bit confused about the Mutoh & Sapp match being included here: it's decent, don't get me wrong, but it's not really a good example of the guy actually doing anything significant: he just shoulder barrages with Sapp a bit and they both exchange chokeslams. He's by far the least interesting of the four men included, even if he does land a top rope splash at one point (through Mutoh needs to roll into position so that he actually lands it) Better examples of early Jamal quality would be his Triple Crown bout against Kawada (12.06.2004) or his actually pretty good Korakuen brawl with Kojima (25.09.2004) during the latter's redemption arc after his long losing streak. He has respectable showings elsewhere as well with a awesome David vs Goliath bout with Kaz Hayashi (13.04.2004) as well as numerous fairly alright tag team brawls. I don't think he would be on a top 100, but all of this and his later solid Umaga work (even if it did kinda start to get tame after the Cena feud) makes him a very respectable choice here. If this was top 150, he'd have a spot.

Unfortunately Suwama's prime comes during AJPW's least known era: if he was in his prime today I think people would be talking a lot more about him. The issue about him needing to be carried to be great, for me, isn't really a actual issue; I've seen Suwama kick ass against a wide variety of opponents. He's great in brawls, great as a underdog, can play a ace role perfectly, can get good heat in matches, etc. The one chink in his armor is that he's bad in long, extended matches: he has a 60 minute match with Taiyo Kea that's just the shits, literally nothing happens. It's half inconsistent limb work that actually goes nowhere (not even regular Puro limb work where it at LEAST plays into the match for the beginning and middle) and the other half is padding via shitty strike exchanges, leading to a ending where Suwama takes all of Kea's offence, springs up like nothing happened, and then wins after some moves. In those situations, yes: he's a guy who needs to be carried to something better, because he's hopeless in long matches. He can't carry mediocre acts to great bouts (beyond some matches with Yoshitatsu) but he can balance the books and make people look good in more balanced bouts, namely when he's playing the bigger threat. He's also unironically a amazing tag specialist and has had a lot of success in that regard, especially in Evolution, Violent Giants, and even the really recent RUNAWAY SUPLEX duo, which have all been fun runs and have added a lot of legitimacy to a top 100 run, especially with Suwama's longevity. While he has slowed down a fair bit and seems to be finally being phased out of the Triple Crown running after a big final run, he's still a super essential part of AJPW and a damn good act at present. I doubt he'll get on here given there's so much more popular talent but I'd definitely consider him having a position given he's taken a while to get truly great (his early work up to maybe 2009 or whatnot isn't consistently there for me) but he has stayed there for a very long while.

I would agree but I think Miz is a quick learner in that aspect. In about a year or so of being around as a tangible member of the roster (I.E. not just doing dark matches or jobbing) he's already doing his very entertaining Dirt Sheet work with Morrison down in ECW and beyond, even if it wouldn't exactly result in the greatest of quality matches. Don't think he was ever going to be a all-star athlete, but I do think he learned quite quickly what his role was and performed it considerably well.

Insanely inconsistent, maybe too much quality-wise to accurately put on a top 100. His NOAH work is bleh with a few bright spots but he mostly stunk the joint with whatever he was trying over there: booking can be blamed for most of that but I felt like he's always been a poor match for overtly long matches in general, his title reign massively Suzuki working longer than 25 minutes drags the pacing down to a utter crawl, it's just something he can't do. This is fine by itself (there's plenty of great workers who can't do the same on here) but it's the fact that he isn't always conscious of this fact is what annoys at times. Overtly long matches are a issue of Puro companies in general but he's one of those who tends to lean into them more often than not with a lot of padding work that doesn't achieve anything but make the match longer. Shoot Suzuki is a really fun period for him but it's WAY too short to really account for much outside of some solid bouts (he has a match series with Shamrock that's pretty underrated) and it's mostly him against unremarkable mid-card acts. He fails to have a good match with Fujiwara on account of the same weakness mentioned above: it goes to a 30 minute draw, way too long for him, which does play badly against him in that regard. He is best used as he's been presented the last 5 years or so: he shows up now and then for big matches with people better than him and manages to get his usual stuff over with his sheer charisma, especially given his workrate has drastically reduced in recent years. Not the biggest fan of his match-style that he tends to lean into for every match (strike exchanges, dumb facial expressions, no selling, etc etc) as it becomes very overplayed and frankly, lazy, especially when he's in a match with no stakes doing the exact same thing as he'd do in a title bout. For me, I think Nagata would have more of a chance of getting on than Suzuki. Suzuki has FAR better high-ends but Nagata's been a consistent good to great act throughout the last 15 years: even his GHC title run I felt was better than Suzuki's overall. Nagata is also a lot more varied than Suzuki has been and has gotten a lot more out of his opponents than Suzuki, who tends to takeover the pacing of the match regardless of who's in with him. Suzuki is someone whom you tend to have high expectations for watching his best work but those reduce as you realise that a LOT of his material beyond that is varied and downright poor for a top 100 quality. He's very good at his best but that best is something that's incredibly hard to keep around.

I think my personal issue is that Jericho never really does anything particularly interesting in-ring as a heel. He really doesn't wrestle any differently beyond applying more long winded rest holds and trash talk and mostly just does the exact same things he normally does in matches: there's nothing really there in terms of variation or whatnot. Maybe he'll add in something new in a blue moon (a la his Mysterio finish at Extreme Rules) but it's mostly just the same material. I mean it works, sure, but it's not very exciting. I suppose I'd rather have that than see him do whatever the "Painmaker" was supposed to be, which was just embarrassing the longer it went on.

Other Deep Dive stuff Introduction Always neglected when it comes to retrospectives, Izumida has always been a curious undercard performer to me since I started watching a bulk of the AJPW TV segments overall. Behind the goofy appearance and uninspiring look was a tremendously aggressive act that could seriously go when prompted, from huge suicide dives to some truly insane spots for a guy his size. Through he never had any truly big pushes, he was always great whenever given the big stage to show off his stuff, but despite this a lot of the reception (especially on Cagematch and the like) has him positioned shockingly low on the totem pole, where he currently stands in the top 250 worst rated wrestlers on the site...for some reason. (seriously, he's worse than Nailz, of all people) Here, I'll be going through a few of the matches that are the most easily accessible for someone new to check out, as well as some personal favourites. There's more than this out there but this is just the ones that I feel like are most worthy of a primer set: if we were just going through good matches in general, this would be a lot longer, needless to say. What's best to know is that Izumida is basically a really stiff lad, so be prepared for some hard shots that would make even Shibata wince. Vs. Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW 22.03.1998) Probably the most infamous Izumida match out there. Him and Kawada basically have a pretty good sub-5 minute match as he essentially realises that Dangerous K is WAY out of his league, so he chooses to take the fight early by going balls to the wall at the very start and hoping to God that things work out. This involves a lot of diving headbutts, some big spots and Kawada being, well, Kawada. You don't need me to tell you who wins this but it's still a ton of fun and one of Izumida's first big moments, which he takes full advantage of here. Seriously, just go watch this when you can, it's a fun ride. W/ Akira Taue vs. Gary Albright & Yoshihiro Takayama (AJPW 24.07.1998) While a lot of Izumida's showings have him as more or less the bully of the bunch, here he's essentially a lower card act having to swim with some real sharks in the form of two beefy guys who certainly don't give him any leeway. Takayama in particular smacks him here with some truly vicious shots after Izumida shows him up early on by blocking a lot of his offence and Izumida essentially has to ride out the experience long enough and try to get his own work in, hoping Taue can do the rest. This is mostly the Izumida show, however, as he powers through the pair's offence and really gets the crowd going by the end of this when he's holding on to the last straw just to survive. It's a very well done underdog match that has some real nail-biting moments throughout. I've seen this match format a lot in AJPW (namely the rookie teaming up with guys far above his paygrade and having to struggle to survive: it's a trend that's practically always been around in some format) but Izumida is most definitely one of the best when it comes to getting this over in general. I've seen far worse, so maybe I'm just more favourable to this than I should be. W/ Giant Kimala Vs. Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki (AJPW 16.01.1999) No one really knew this was going to be a great match from the get-go, but this somehow mutates into perhaps one of the top tag MOTY contenders for the year in general, not just AJPW. This starts off fairly good as Kimala and Izumida thrive as two big tanks that just hurl around the lighter guys with ease, mixing in some heel work at points to get the crowd more invested in the eventual comebacks of the duo. There's a certain moment in this match where things go from decent to utterly incredible: if you've watched the match, you know exactly what I mean: I'm not going to spoil it here for new viewers, just check the whole thing out but try not to eat beforehand. Izumida and co take complete advantage of the situation and turn it from a potential confusing mess in the hands of less experienced workers to a masterclass in heel brutality. There's a rematch that happened a month later but it's mostly just bleh; a weak attempt to catch lightning in a bottle twice. A great heel showing for Izumida that puts him over big time as a horrifically dangerous opponent. This arguably was the match where "Violence Master" became not just a nickname, but raw reality. W/ Giant Kimala vs. NO FEAR (Yoshihiro Takayama & Takao Omori) (AJPW 20.02.2000) Not going to lie: most of Izumida's match material with Kimala is either alright or just downright bad at points. They don't tend to have good matches usually but when they NEED to step up like here, they absolutely do so. Izumida takes a beating but unlike the Taue match, he shows that he can dish it out with some big headbutts, lariats, and outright stiff slaps. He can hang with the duo but just misses the mark due to NO FEAR's superior experience in brawls. Izumida shows that he can sell incredibly well as his injured mid-section is absolutely honed in by the NO FEAR pair throughout as a clutch to keep him in control, of which he builds very nicely to a Kimala hot tag, of all things. Unlike the last match where he was with someone who needed to carry him out of pure raw strength (in kayfabe, naturally) here him and Kimala are positioned as a true balanced duo, landing lots of goofy and at times sensational double team moves, helping each other out of very sticky situations. Izumida more than proves that he could more than have a competent match out of probably one of the best tag teams of this year (seriously, 2000 is a banner year for Takayama/Omori in general) but this is a great showing for things to come and a solid introduction to Izumida's modern style going forward. Vs. Takeshi Rikio (NOAH 25.01.2001) Izumida takes Rikio, whom at this point is a competent but pretty middling rookie singles act who seems to be only good in well coordinated tags to one of his best singles matches as of date, which is remarkable given Rikio's only real "good" match beforehand was with Misawa: a very high bar. Brutal, nasty, downright overkill at times. It's just two very meaty ex-sumo lads basically just hurling around in various ways and really just beating the crap out of the other. It's hard to use so many words for "stiff" but THIS is stiff, and it used in such a manner to enhance what would be a run of the mill match to something far more. Izumida lives up to his moniker and gives Rikio a ton of space to rail on him at points with some truly devastating stuff. By the end of this the crowd is popping for everything like this is Kobashi/Misawa or something crazy over like that, getting incredibly invested for every near fall this gives. This is clipped but still feels like a full-length match by the balls to the wall pacing and effective usage of big bombs. Vs. Takeshi Morishima (NOAH 13.03.2004) This is for Morishima's WLM belt (a American promotion that NOAH regularly worked alongside and trained people) and is actually the main event of the entire event, which was a cool gesture. Anyway, this goes how you'd expect it to go, but this shows how effective Izumida is at control segments and cut-offs, able to recover after a early beating by a insane diving headbutt from the ropes to the outside before focusing on Morishima's taped up leg for the duration of this match. He combines stiff slaps, chops, headbutts, alongside some surprisingly innovative technical work and agile spots to keep control his throughout. He shows that he can dictate a match (as seen above with Rikio) almost completely by himself, managing to get some good crowd reactions throughout this bout and building to a really fun comeback sequence and finishing stretch where it's just a mad scramble. Morishima's selling is bad when it comes to extended selling (like he'll scream and cry throughout the holds and working segments, but he'll almost switch that mode off as soon as he's free to work and he'll NEVER change his usual work to accommodate) but he's a good bomb thrower who is quite over with the crowd at this point, so this mistake is forgiven in their eyes. Izumida gets about as much as you can get from Morishima at this point and time and then some. Conclusion As stated above, this is just a helpful primer to Izumida's style of work, as well as a wide range of different matches where you can see how he can play both a confident underdog or a brutal heel with little regard for his own and his opponent's wellbeing. There's a lot more out there if you search around and some really fun matches that I left out of here to keep this simple and concise as all of these can be just easily picked up and watched without any additional context or pre-match watching. Hopefully you enjoy and appreciate one of the lesser heralded stars of early NOAH.

Might squeeze in Milano after watching some of his stuff. Fairly short career but it's a pretty top-notch 9 years all things considered