Mr. Gannosuke

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[El-P]

The best FMW worker ever at his peak. It's as simple as this. One of my lost favourites that seems to be totally forgotten at this point, sadly (kinda like The Bloody, for instance).

[Loss]

I think Gannosuke has a strong case. He always reminded me of Greg Valentine as far as his style, and I'd probably have him above Valentine on a list like this.

 

Gannosuke I'd recommend:

 

Hayabusa, Ricky Fuji & Ricky Morton vs The Gladiator, Hisakatsu Oya & Mr. Gannosuke (05/13/97)

Masato Tanaka vs Mr. Gannosuke (01/06/98)

Hayabusa vs Mr. Gannosuke (04/30/98)

Mr. Gannosuke vs Hisakatsu Oya (01/05/99)

Mr. Gannosuke, Hisakatsu Oya, Yukihiro Kanemura, Hideki Hosaka & Hido vs Yuki Ishikawa, Daisuke Ikeda, Mohammed Yone, Takashi Hijikata & Katsumi Usuda (05/05/99)

Hayabusa, Masato Tanaka & Tetsuhiro Kuroda vs Mr. Gannosuke, Yukihiro Kanemura & Hido (06/15/99)

Mr. Gannosuke vs Masato Tanaka (08/20/99)

Mr. Gannosuke vs Hayabusa (08/25/99)

Masato Tanaka & Tetsuhiro Kuroda vs H & Mr. Gannosuke (12/12/99)

[Dylan Waco]

I remember really liking Gannosuke and Oya, but being above Valentine is high praise for me. I see Valentine as a top half guy for this. I'm going to rewatch this stuff if I can track it down this week, more for the Valentine comparison than anything else

[El-P]

Why the Valentine analogy ? (Don't get me wrong, I love Valentine, but I just never thought about such a comparison)

[Loss]

Simple, crisp, stiff offense.

[El-P]

Okay, I can get that. Gannosuke was able to work super fast stretches though, which really was never Valentine's style. But yeah, the back-to-basics approach of Gannosuke was definitely one of his strong points.

[Jetlag]

I've been on a bit of a Gannosuke kick lately. People have talked about his 90s work, but I also really enjoy his more veteran work in the 2000s. People mostly remember him for the outrageous heel stuff, but the guy is a sneaky good matworker and mostly earns his paychecks being a really great old school type worker ala Tully Blanchard carrying some yokel to a good 20 minute studio TV match.

 

 

Mr. Gannosuke & Hisakatsu Oya & GOEMON vs. Soldier & Mineo Fujita & Black Buffalo (WMF 3/3/2006)

 

Really, really fun SWS style tag where everyone smacks each other hard and works a fast pace. Gannosuke is pretty great here in the Tenryu role of guy everyone wants to take down and who wolds the match together with his charisma and presence. Soldier acts like a spunky dipshit, so Gannosuke decides to break a kendo stick in half and stab the shit out of him. Really good FIP section with Soldier bleeding and all the veterans looking good. Dug Oya, who did little in the match except hit cool throat jabs and sick looking backdrops as Oya always does. There was one lariat/backdrop combo from Gannosuke and Oya on Soldier that looked like a decapitation. Everyone on the junior team looked good also and most importantly, everyone understood their role.

 

Mr. Gannosuke & Tarzan Goto vs. Mineo Fujita & Soldier, WMF 9/5/2005 - EPIC

Really great match largely thanks to the awesome veteran work of Gannosuke and Goto. These two basically treated their junior opponents like the Anderson Bros would treat a jobber team for large parts of the match. We get a really cool opening segment where they all hit the mat. Goto looks older and fatter here, but he is still so great rolling around, bumping for armdrags, working headlocks and eventually punching his opponent in the face. Soldier was in the role of spunky underdog here, he makes the mistake of challening Goto and ends up getting smacked down. Then, because Goto is Goto, physically besting an opponent isn’t enough for him, so busts out the foreign objects and Soldier is soon a bloody mess. Lord, has there ever been a match where Goto didn’t end up covered in his opponents blood? Soldier on offense isn’t very compelling, but he got in so little offense in this match and was willing to let Goto chuck tables at his head that I am willing to like him. Mineo Fujita is a bit more compelling on offense, as he has really good looking dropkicks, and he has some really fun sections where he mixes it up with Goto, who works surprisingly well against this type of opponent. However, Gannosuke catches him in a Scorpion Deathlock, and following that we get another segment built around Goto and Gannosuke destroying his back with awesome looking suplexes and slams. Lord knows I may be desensetized, but Goto trying to blow out Fujitas spine with a damn Vader Bomb to the back was absolutely sick looking. Then we get a great finishing run largely built around powerbombs and hard lariats. That kinda stuff is bread and butter for FMW workrate tags, but the body of the match here was built so well with Fujita and Soldier looking to be hanging on by a thread that I gave a shit. Also, wonderful nearfall here where Fujita catches Gannosuke in his own Gannosuke Clutch.

 

Mr. Gannosuke vs. Mineo Fujita, WMF 7/1/2006

Apparently Fujita is Mr. Gannosukes boy, and here they go long in what probably is Fujitas career match. I respect the hell out of Mr. Gannosuke for making a name for himself as a sleazy garbage brawling heel, and riding it out in the twilight of his career in grapple-heavy matches. Again this starts with lots of cool matwork, with Fujita busting out a cool calf slicer, and Gannosuke catching him with a crafty abdominal stretch. Gannosuke ends up working over Fujita and eventually working over his arm with some cool stretches before a grand old finishing run that was well done. Fujita isn’t super special or anything but his arm selling was servicable and he didn’t have any retarded offense, which I appreciate. Brutal brutal finish.

 

Mr. Gannosuke vs. Manabu Hara (Batos Cafe 4/3/2018)

Awesome match, which may actually be the best Gannosuke singles I’ve seen, which is crazy to say about a match that happened in 2018. I guess random uploads from Japanese micro indy related YouTube channels are the new gold. I think this was during Gannosukes retirement run so he was bringing the goods. First half of the match is all matwork. Suruga is obviously younger and more athletic and pushing the pace, so Gannosuke breaks out a bunch of awesome Fujiwaraesque counters. Totally didn’t know he had that in him. Second half Suruga continues to dominate by laying into Gannosuke with kicks and palms, I also did not expect a 48 year old has-been-coasting-for-years Gannosuke to eat that kind of stiff punishment. It’s really all about whether Gannosuke is tough enough to survive and break out a counter or whether the younger wrestler will blow him away. Gannosuke is of course a really fun tricky pro wrestler, he can always turn a match around by just kicking someone in the balls or busting out his awesome Gannosuke Clutch, and he fires back with some crowbar lariats and big bombs of his own. No idea what’s been going on lately with so many awesome unexpected Japan indy matches popping up but I love it.