[2010-02-07-BattlARTS] Yuta Yoshikawa & Katsumi Usuda vs Ikuto Hidaka & Munenori Sawa

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[superkix]

This is Yuta Yoshikawa's retirement from professional wrestling. Sadly, Yoshikawa had a short-lived career but boy oh boy, did he go out with a bang -- a lot of bangs. I remember watching this match when it first popped up online and it quickly became one of my favorite tag team matches...and it still is. These guys work an incredibly stiff pace for over 25 minutes and it's insane. Hidaka working in a shoot-style setting is one of my favorite things to watch because the cat is super slick on the mat with his counters and his wily kicks. He and Usuda focus on the submission attempts while Sawa and the retiring Yoshikawa kick the shit out of each other. The selling was really convincing throughout, especially from Hidaka and Yoshikawa, who takes an absolute beating but is still exhaustively swinging away. There are countless brutal strikes, nasty suplexes, including a big dragon from Sawa, and an emotional finish, as Sawa kicks Yoshikawa in the head and Yoshikawa struggles to make it back to his feet before the ten count. Instead of letting him get counted down and moving on with his day, Sawa stops the ref, urging Yoshikawa to get up and keep fighting. And he gets up, he’s all fired up, slapping everyone, including his own partner, before he and Sawa thrash each other a bit longer and Sawa knocks him out with a punch. One of the best BattlARTS matches and a personal all-time favorite.