[1999-08-29-BattlARTS] Yuki Ishikawa vs Daisuke Ikeda

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Pretty great match. Nothing touches their 1997 match for me, but I think this is the second best of their series. I like the selling in this to go with the usual brutality. The extended selling got this over as a very special match.

[Tim Evans]

This was pretty good for the style. Lot more mat based than usual but still good. I liked some of the tag matches better though.

[soup23]

Sometimes you just want to watch two dudes beat the shit out of each other. THis was a great struggle match that you would expect from these two. I have no idea what my favorite match between these two is, but this is certainly up there. Ikeda looked dominant here but Ishikawa is able to find a reversal or escape out of everything. The finish really played into that point by Ishikawa finally not being able to find a solution and he has to tap as a result. Beautiful, gritty wrestling. ****1/2

[tim]

I'm not sure how I'd compare this with their 2005 match, I'd have to watch them back to back. 2005 has it for the brutality but this really has some excellent psuedo-shoot work. Of course, the brutality is there too. They bring it on all fronts with the striking, submissions, well done knock downs and a real gritty fight feeling throughout. Ikeda's pele kick is a pretty spectacular highspot in the context of the match and everything that came after that was on the next level of intensity. Appropriately strong ending.

[PeteF3]

Recency bias notwithstanding this has been my favorite BattlArts war of 1999...probably. Just an unbelievably brutal fight with stiff strikes and some wrasslin'-style bombs that all make sense and all fight into a shoot context, even the match-clinching DVD at the end by Ikeda.

[superkix]

At the very least, tied with the May 1998 match as my favorite in their series of beatdowns. This is the final of the Young Generations Battle '99 -- and keep in mind that Ikeda had worked a 15:00 match prior to this against Yone to get him to this point. As with many of their matches, it starts in similar fashion with Ikeda trying to hang on the ground and Ishikawa prevailing. But clearly, Ikeda is more worn out here and he doesn’t quite have the same fire. He’s more desperate, wanting to just slug it out with Ishikaw -- and they do and of course, it’s stiff, gritty, and uncompromising. Ishikawa finds some leverage on the ground and starts working him over but Ikeda is too relentless, kicking him against the ropes, Ishikawa doing his best to try and block the brunt of them before he fires back hard with elbows. Ikeda's able to put him in a tired triangle choke and even tries for the crossface chickenwing he lost to in their earlier tournament match – I mean, you get the sense that he really wants to beat Ishikawa and Ishikawa is just trying not to lose. After finally leveling Ishikawa with a lariat on the third try, Ikeda puts him in a pretty badass kimura but Ishikawa makes the ropes. Ishikawa, on the otherhand, is throwing dope suplexes and trying to choke him out but Ikeda won’t die. In the end, he uses whatever energy he has left to drop Ishikawa with the Death Valley Bomb and tap him with the armbar. What a fight!