Tomohiro Ishii

[El Dragon]

What I’m gathering from this thread is that if someone, like me, per say, doesn’t care for Strong Style “Let’s trade strikes in the ring for 60 seconds just prove who is tougher” Ishii at all, there probably is no salavaging him at all, yes? It’s a style of match in modern wrestling I usually can’t stand much, and while I think Ishii is pretty good at it by comparison to the rest, I was hoping there was some of him working a different style role to dig my teeth into.

[strobogo]

That is a feature of most of his matches against anyone, but only the main basis of a match with a couple of guys. He usually finds other ways to get the same idea across even if it isn't just a strike battle, though.

[Boss Rock]

28 minutes ago, El Dragon said:

What I’m gathering from this thread is that if someone, like me, per say, doesn’t care for Strong Style “Let’s trade strikes in the ring for 60 seconds just prove who is tougher” Ishii at all, there probably is no salavaging him at all, yes? It’s a style of match in modern wrestling I usually can’t stand much, and while I think Ishii is pretty good at it by comparison to the rest, I was hoping there was some of him working a different style role to dig my teeth into.

His matches with the likes of Okada, Omega, Naito, Sabre, and Jay show what Ishii is capable of apart from strong style strike sequences.

[Righteous River]

Ishii is one of my least favorite wrestlers. To me, he is a guy who doesn't really bring anything interesting to the table. His "I hit you, you hit me" and fighting spirit formula is completely tiresome to me and it doesn't help that he has among the most rigid adherences to his formula of any pro wrestler that I have ever seen. No matter what someone does as a wrestler, they are always gonna do brainless strike exchanges with him and he is gonna jump up from a German and scream. Even if you strip away his stylistic idiosyncrasies which your opinion will depend completely on personal taste, I don't think he does anything worth writing home about. He is a decent striker in his younger years (which has totally wilted away as he's aged) but not exceptional. He tries to work violent matches but they come across as sanitized especially compared to his contemporaries. He isn't gonna give you anything technically. His selling is impressive at first but eventually it's clear that it is the same in every match and lost its appeal to me a long time ago. There isn't gonna be interesting or unique stories in his matches ever. It is either 50/50 "strong style" or the standard underdog template. To me, he is a guy who is generic in every way. He is just a puro CAW at his best and when you add in his tendencies that I hate, he is such a chore to watch. 

[Cap]

I like Ishii quite a bit.  I think he brings a little more variety and nuance to the table than some might be giving him credit for. Not to say everyone will love him. I can certainly see the criticism. However, I think his G1s generally show what he can do. When you see him work a variety of opponents back to back to back some of the different ways he works with folks pop a little more to me.  I like the strong style and the sort of cathartic tough guy stuff sometimes so he is kind of a high floor candidate to me.  Not sure he makes my list, but he is another I really want to explore a good bit more.

[smoldoink]

I gotta agree with Jetlag here. I find his early career work significantly more interesting than the "stagger to the center of the ring and trade forearms" style he seems to have popularized in Japan over the last 5 years. I guess there's a case there for being the most influential Japanese worker of the last 5 years, but I'd argue that influence is largely negative.

[strobogo]

Nah that style was a throw back to early 00s NJ and puro in general and he and Shibata brought it back after it had really dropped off after Inokism bullshit

[Jetlag]

42 minutes ago, strobogo said:

Nah that style was a throw back to early 00s NJ and puro in general and he and Shibata brought it back after it had really dropped off after Inokism bullshit

I really don't think so. If you watch that stuff there was far, far fewer "I hit you - you hit me stuff". And almost no "waiting for the other guy to hit you back". Even in matches centered around strike exchanges like Tenryu/Hashimoto. Instead there was far more guys trying to maul each other in the corner or in the ropes. If you watch young Ishii, you can even see him trying to do the "puff his chest and act tough" thing but his opponents wouldn't let it fly. There really was nothing like those Ishii/Shibata matches, and whether you think that is a good or bad thing is probably down to taste. I think Ishiis matches becoming more robotic may be due to him being pretty shot physically (and transitioning to heavyweight/roiding) and him being allowed to max out his tough guy act.

[strobogo]

If Ishii is roiding he's not doing it right 

[Tetsujin]

On 4/10/2021 at 9:01 PM, Jetlag said:

People should check out Ishiis early work in promotions like WAR, DDT, CAPTURE, IWA Japan, even Michinoku Pro. It's more interesting than the groove he got into in 2010s New Japan.

I love his 10s NJPW work (and he's still going in 2020-21) and I can see myself voting for him just with that in mind, but I would love to watch everything remarkable from this early period in his career.

[Ma Stump Puller]

I really don't agree with the idea that Ishii was or is "one note" or "just goes for strike exchanges and/or elbow shots" especially when you look at the stuff he's been putting out. He can be a comedic straight man tagging with complete goofs (or facing against them like his series with Yano) a underdog going up against bigger sized guns, a grumpy vet trying to put down stubborn new blood that won't quit, carrying undercard acts to bigger and better things, playing cat and mouse with bigger and tougher guys or having to claw through the antics of dirty heels. Yes, Ishii has (mostly) one way of wrestling these days: it's what got him to the dance in the first place: but the idea that he just goes into everything with the Shibata lens and goes gun-ho is just inaccurate in general. He's a very competent storyteller that just tends to focus on a single format to actually tell them. 

 

 

 

[Boss Rock]

On 1/5/2022 at 1:38 PM, Ma Stump Puller said:

I really don't agree with the idea that Ishii was or is "one note" or "just goes for strike exchanges and/or elbow shots" especially when you look at the stuff he's been putting out. He can be a comedic straight man tagging with complete goofs (or facing against them like his series with Yano) a underdog going up against bigger sized guns, a grumpy vet trying to put down stubborn new blood that won't quit, carrying undercard acts to bigger and better things, playing cat and mouse with bigger and tougher guys or having to claw through the antics of dirty heels. Yes, Ishii has (mostly) one way of wrestling these days: it's what got him to the dance in the first place: but the idea that he just goes into everything with the Shibata lens and goes gun-ho is just inaccurate in general. He's a very competent storyteller that just tends to focus on a single format to actually tell them. 

 

 

 

Co-sign.

[El-P]

Just watched a Riki Choshu match from 2007, and so at the very least, he was already really fucking good back then. Also, it's fun to watch some of his first matches in WAR not only because it's so odd to see from where he comes from (not to mention the classic 90's randomly colorful japanese indy tights), but because of course, confirmation bias in effect, you're looking for flashes of what he would become. I'm pretty sure no one back then ever saw it coming nor paid attention to that pesky small guy who kinda looked like Nise Ohara. (On a sidenote, it will never cease to amaze me that Red Shoes Uno actually was the WAR referee too)

[Clayton Jones]

Ishii was definitely being noticed and talked up on message boards at least back to the early 2000s.

Edit: made the same point previous page lol. But yeah, sometimes I watch modern Ishii and I love him, sometimes I yearn for simpler times. He'll be a tough one to assess.

[GOTNW]

I'm glad Ishii's hard work has been rewarded and he successfully went from being a filler midcard title defence for Masato Tanaka to the legendary Hall of Famer and whatever else he is considered these days, but I'm gonna have to disqualify him from my list for replacing any sort of remembrance of Choshuist tradition in wrestling with Daisuke Sekimoto tribute matches.

[Reel]

I don't entirely blame him for it, but his influence on modern wrestling has made it so so so much worse.