[1999-12-05-BattlARTS] Katsumi Usuda & Carl Malenko vs Yuki Ishikawa & Masaaki Mochizuki

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Yet another good BattlARTS tag. Mochizuki and Usuda are very good, but I was wanting a little more Ishikawa and Greco. This didn't have the excitement surrounding the finish of the previous tags and I don't think overall it came together quite as well. But it's still hard to complain about a match this good.

[Tim Evans]

This match makes me want to see more Carl Malenko. He looks like the Messiah of XPW fame. Everytime he was in he was doing something exciting. He'd really fit in with the Timothy Thacther/Drew Gulak/Biff Busick group of modern mat workers. Rest of the guys were ok. I'm surprised Mochizuki went from this to Dragon Gate.

[Zenjo]

Really solid stuff here with a consistent level throughout. At its best when Ishikawa and Usuda were squaring off. Malenko came in carrying a minor leg injury, which didn't pass unnoticed. He didn't stand out like the match partnering Joe earlier in the Yearbook. Mochizuki's performance was the weakest, although it wasn't below average in the grand scheme of things. His style was a bit too Juniorish and would fit in better with a different promotion from the time period.

[tim]

This match kept getting better as it went along. Started off feeling like a fun low-key Battlarts tag and by the end was pretty damn great. I really liked Malenko here, and the other team going after his leg was a pleasantly long-lasting theme in the match. I think my favorite stuff might have been with Mochizuki and Usuda, especially towards the end where they had a run featuring lots of big spots outside the scope of shoot style. Most of all this match made me really miss the Battlarts style.

[PeteF3]

Pretty solid but I don't know if it was really more than that. This was definitely a more pro-wrestling feel of a match than other BattlArts tags, just without pinfalls. Still, everybody looked good and the action was always moving.