Koki Kitahara

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[El-P]

The third rate little Kawada of SWS/WAR, but what a fun worker he was. Always the most solid of these promotions undercards, with legitimate excellent performances when he got the opportunity (like against Hase in WAR). Lumpy, not overly charismatic but still connecting with his indy audience, better worker than a bunch of the main promotions undercard guys, would probably be a top 100 worker if he had more opportunities to shine, but in his own setting, he was often a blast. I believe he ended up promoting in his own area, some sort of shoot-style promotion with no ring and just a mat on the floor.

[Jetlag]

Koki Kitahara is one of the most fascinating hidden wrestlers. Tubby mulleted asskicker in a rainbow colored gi, who is a skillful grappler but mostly devolves his matches into violent blunt force asskicking. The CAPTURE project is fascinating. I'm currently trying to catalogue every match he's been in:

https://reverseviperhold.blogspot.com/2020/12/koki-kitahara-documentation-project.html

[KB8]

I'll probably vote for Kitahara this time and I want to go through Jetlag's list of stuff outside WAR/SWS. A vicious little bruiser who can take an otherwise fine midcard match and turn it into something awesome by losing the rag and trying to brutalise someone. 

[Jom]

Definitely making my list. A lot of shine will be given to his more ultraviolent work (deservedly so), but I think it gets lost in all the stiffness praise that Kitahara had so much more to offer besides punt kicks and closed fists. He was a pretty phenomenal junior worker, acting as a very convincing overdog in a lot of his SWS singles matches and playing all the right notes to complement the more high-flying opponents like Masao Orihara and Akira Katayama. He was also a fantastic victim when called upon, most evident in the incredible 10/23/92 tag where he spends the vast majority of his time getting squashed by Shiro Koshinaka and Kengo Kimura. People love to point out the jaw-dropping Tenryu hot tag from that match where Tenryu flies over the ropes from the velocity of his own lariat, but it's often not mentioned just how phenomenal Kitahara's desperation head kick to set up the tag is.

Having said all of that, Kitahara's wheelhouse was certainly his boundary-pushing liberties, and if every list needs at least one guy who made a career off of hitting people way too hard, Kitahara is a strong pick for that position.