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Yoshihiro Takayama


Grimmas

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Might have been one of the best wrestlers in the world in the early 2000's. Great atmosphere, over as fuck, a dominating essence all in all but could work and wrestle very well for himself. He's a great asskicking heel that can really play both a surprisingly good presence against the big stars, bumping and selling at just the right moments, but could also flick a switch and just send them to hell and back with his horrifically stiff knees and general offence. Even after the stroke and his years of hard-hitting caught up with him (and they did, as much as you'd hope it wouldn't) he was still a good hand that could be relied upon to fill almost any role as a freelancer act. Even some of his rare comedy stuff that he did on the indies is quite well done, surprisingly.

It's a shame that people only include his NOAH peak through. Yes, that's where most of his best material comes from, but his AJPW work had him pull out some bangers for a guy who'd barely gotten any match experience beyond shoot-style stuff. NO FEAR as a unit helped get him there faster with Omori and him having some great chemistry all in all. Even his early Triangle of Power work is actually fairly fun to check out. A small list of material from that era:

Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama (AJPW Super Power Series 09.06.2000)

Giant Kimala II & Jun Izumida vs. Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama (AJPW Excite Series 20.02.2000)

Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama (AJPW New Year Giant Series 23.01.2000)

Jun Akiyama vs. Yoshihiro Takayama (New Year Giant Series 09.01.2000)

Jun Akiyama & Kenta Kobashi vs. Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama (October Giant Series 30.10.1999)

Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Yoshihiro Takayama (Summer Action Series II 04.09.1999)

Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama (Summer Action Series 25.08.1999)

Bart Gunn & Johnny Ace vs. Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama (Summer Action Series 23.07.1999)

Kenta Kobashi & Kentaro Shiga vs. Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama (Summer Action Series 04.07.1999)

Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki vs. Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama (Super Power Series 04.06.1999)

Keep in mind this is just one year of ring work, not even including his extended UWF-I/AJPW Kawada feud and whatnot. No brainer for top 50.

 

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  • 1 month later...

Takiyama has been one of the guys I've been most surprised with as I begin to watch Japanese wrestling and other things like that for this project. He's awesome. I've mostly watched his stuff with Kobashi, but in all of the matches I've seen with him he's looked great. Big dude who can move and kick ass. I feel bad that I'm just coming around to him now.

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  • 1 month later...

I've been watching quite a bit of early to mid 00's stuff lately and :

On 2/22/2022 at 12:39 AM, Ma Stump Puller said:

Might have been one of the best wrestlers in the world in the early 2000's. Great atmosphere, over as fuck, a dominating essence all in all but could work and wrestle very well for himself. He's a great asskicking heel that can really play both a surprisingly good presence against the big stars, bumping and selling at just the right moments, but could also flick a switch and just send them to hell and back with his horrifically stiff knees and general offence.

He was indeed quite the big match worker at this time, really consistent too and could work with many kind of different guys and always make the most out of his own game. Him destroying a young Nakamura at the Dome in 2004 was an ace monster heel veteran performance. I was a fan back then, but re-watching him now (and more than I had previously seen), I've been enjoying him even more. Gonna watch some of his UWF-I stuff too eventually.

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2 hours ago, El-P said:

I've been watching quite a bit of early to mid 00's stuff lately and :

He was indeed quite the big match worker at this time, really consistent too and could work with many kind of different guys and always make the most out of his own game. Him destroying a young Nakamura at the Dome in 2004 was an ace monster heel veteran performance. I was a fan back then, but re-watching him now (and more than I had previously seen), I've been enjoying him even more. Gonna watch some of his UWF-I stuff too eventually.

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.

 

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Well, I'm going through UWF-I anyway, so he's not a guy I'm gonna skip, but yeah, not looking for anything specific nor expecting some high quality stuff, although the very early stuff was kinda fun to watch (against quality opponent) with the hindsight of what he would become. Slim, in shape Takayama is pretty odd to watch !

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  • 2 months later...

Takayama will be in my top 15. He's got a solid list of really entertaining UWF-i matches, including a great draw with Kanehara from 94 that feels like the best Ultimate Fighter finale ever, just these two hungry young dudes going to war. There's also a Sakuraba match from 96 that feels really crisp and fresh. He's awesome as an invader of WAR with Yoji Anjoh, showing his dickish comedic chops. He's a great bruiser tag guy in All Japan against their main eventers and a great bully to their young guys. The 10/9/99 six man of No Fear/Fuchi vs Kobashi/Akiyama/Shiga is a standout example of that, along with the 2/28/98 tag of Takayama/Kakihara vs Akiyama/Kobashi. When given rope in All Japan in singles, he always delivered something interesting. The 97 singles with Kawada is a great invading shooter match, their 99 rematch is almost a simulated kickboxing contest. The 2000 sprint with Akiyama and the title match against Kobashi both deliver really fast-paced hard-hitting matches that pop in All Japan. He goes to NOAH and dyes his hair and the monster awakens. Basically every big match from 2000-2009 is must see and he works in a lot of different styles within them. He can come in and slaughter your top guy like in the Nagata, Kobashi and Misawa matches. He can work as a bully against KENTA, Ogawa, Suwama, Nakamura, and Sugiura. He can get some egg on his face and get confused by different styles against KENTA, Ogawa and Nishimura too. He bleeds well. He escalates violence well. He fits my kind of wrestling I like to watch perfectly; "stiff, thought-out, intense, fast, and a little angry." I have no idea why people don't have him higher. Greatest monster heel ever, for my money.

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