Kazunari Murakami

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[El-P]

Punches in the face. Yay.

[Benbeeach]

An easy top 100 of the previous decade. But outside of that . . .

[Jetlag]

If BattlARTS had gone a little longer and he had a dozen or half more matches there I think he'd be a lock. I don't know when or how he first showed up, he is an eternal favourite for me as ideal heel shooter invader, all time great mugging, blood licking freak and somebody I always want to check out. Unless it's an Inoki-booked empty arena cage match, that is.

[GOTNW]

If you're primarily basing your criteria on the amount of great work someone has had then Murakami probably isn't your guy because there's simply not that much work there. But if you're more interested in the quality of someone's performances and enjoy the style then I think Murakami is someone who should be considered. I put a lot of stock in how a wrestlers carries themselves and that's where Murakami really excels. He is a very charismatic performer and always gets me excited over his matches, whether he's in an out of this world great brawl vs Ishikawa, a random tag match, a squash match in TOKYO Gurentai or an intergender match in Ice Ribbon. He brings a vile intensity to everything he does and makes standing on someone in the corner or simply staring special. He's got great offence, he can sell, he can bump, he makes transitions in his matches meaningful and regularly wins matches with a (very well executed might I add) face punch. He's everything I'd want from a pro wrestler and I will probably rate him.

[Superstar Sleeze]

I probably won't rank him unless I see more, but holy shit was he great in the three matches I have seen. He is a total crazed, bloodlust lunatic. The Nagata/Murakami 2002 should be seen by all. Crazy energy and a perfect heel invader shooter beat down followed by a kick ass Nagata comeback. My 2002 match of the year.

[GOTNW]

Murakami has become a lock for my list and I'll rank him as highly as I rationally can. Between his singles matches vs Ishikawa, Nagata, Ohtani and various Battlarts tags he actually has a nice resume of high end matches.

[KB8]

Murakami was my number 100 in 2016 and, to use elliot's terminology, I fucking blew it with that. #100, is usually reserved for the "kooky pick" in these polls and that belies how deadly serious - as deadly as his face as he emerges from under the ring covered in blood and sneering like a psychopath - I am about being a Murakami fan. Look, I get why people don't like him. He's certainly not for everyone and I can understand why he has a rep as a borderline (or fully over the line) unprofessional crowbar. But to hell with all that because Murakami rules and his aura is sensational and I could count on one hand the amount of people I buy as being a genuine lunatic more than I buy Murakami being a genuine lunatic. The death stare! The blood-licking! He also has some truly awesome matches on his CV and he's added a ton to all of them (just through his personality for a start). There are moments in tag matches where he gets involved and there's a palpable feeling of "oh christ this is about to go off the rails," but off the rails in the good way and not off the rails in the way jdw used to talk about Flair matches and that early arm work and let's not open that particular can of beans again, shall we? Murakami will be a lock for my list again and he'll be at least, like, six spots higher. There is no kookiness here. 

 

KAZUNARI MURAKAMI YOU SHOULD WATCH:

w/Naoya Ogawa v Shinya Hashimoto & Takayuki Iizuka (New Japan, 1/4/00)

w/Naoyuki Taira v Yuki Ishikawa & Carl Greco

v Yuki Ishikawa (Battlarts, 11/26/00)

v Yuji Nagata (New Japan, 12/12/02)

w/ Kohei Sato v Keisuke Okuda & Akira Jo (NEW, 7/7/17)

[Jetlag]

I dedicated todays blogpost to watching some Murakami:

https://reverseviperhold.blogspot.com/2021/05/gwe-watching-3-kazunari-murakami.html

 

The thing that stuck out was how natural Murakami was at his thing. He was 5 matches into his career and already bringing it in a big way. It's not just that he was a crowbar or a mechnical shootstylist, he understood how to play his character, how to set himself up and how to play off other wrestlers. He works wrestlers as different as Ishikawa, Otsuka and Greco in exactly the right ways. He's also STILL wrestling and making people excited when NOAH wheels him out, so that has to account for something.

[elliott]

Man I love some Kazunari Murakami. Just an amazing sneering prick. One of my all time favorite characters. I didn't vote for him in 2016 and I fucking blew it. Murakami is awesome. He's always a better mat-worker than I remember because when I think of him I just think of the glare. 

[Ma Stump Puller]

On 5/5/2021 at 5:59 PM, Jetlag said:

I dedicated todays blogpost to watching some Murakami:

https://reverseviperhold.blogspot.com/2021/05/gwe-watching-3-kazunari-murakami.html

 

The thing that stuck out was how natural Murakami was at his thing. He was 5 matches into his career and already bringing it in a big way. It's not just that he was a crowbar or a mechnical shootstylist, he understood how to play his character, how to set himself up and how to play off other wrestlers. He works wrestlers as different as Ishikawa, Otsuka and Greco in exactly the right ways. He's also STILL wrestling and making people excited when NOAH wheels him out, so that has to account for something.

I think that's definitely a aspect of his overall package that gets somewhat neglected beyond the bloody violence; you get a good sense of continuity with him when interacting with wrestlers he's feuded against and whatnot. Like his 2021 tag with Marufuji, he plays off the fact that he beat the shit out of him 15 years ago by specifically having it in for him even after all that time, and they have by far the best interactions in terms of sheer nasty antics. Otani is another good example: his whole return to ZERO-ONE in 2006 is factored around him terrorising and cheap-shotting the same guy who he last fought in 2001, yet acts like it was just yesterday. There's a sense of pettiness in his rivalries that's missing a fair bit these days, how he never really forgets past feuds. 

Alongside the suggestions already made, I would heavily suggest watching his 2006/2007 run in the aforementioned company as it's a lot of fun seeing him scum it out with MMA rejects and weird deathmatch lads. It's pretty great all the way up to his last Otani match (I.E. the best one) that ends up costing him three years of wrestling as a result.

 

 

 

 

 

[Mr JMML]

His match against Yuki Ishikawa in November 2000 is a top 3 match of that year, he always stands out, Murakami is usually the highlight of every match he is in. I love his attitude in the ring but his case isn't deep enough for me.

[Ma Stump Puller]

3 hours ago, Mr JMML said:

His match against Yuki Ishikawa in November 2000 is a top 3 match of that year, he always stands out, Murakami is usually the highlight of every match he is in. I love his attitude in the ring but his case isn't deep enough for me.

How so? He's basically entertaining as anything post-UFO work, quickly gets his shit together and has his career-high BattlARTS stuff, keeps being consistently great until 2007, and even when he returns post-brain damage he's still quite entertaining in tags and was having bangers all the way up to 2021. I mean that's a pretty good stream of quality for such a long period, I feel like top 100 fits that definition well

 

[Reel]

I thought his recent run in NOAH was embarrassing, just sloppy and uninteresting outside of the 'Murakami is in current NOAH and wearing a suit' initial reactions. 

[KB8]

I would say his case absolutely is deep enough, and in fact is much deeper than even I thought the first time around. I don't even think I've seen anything post-2017, but I thought he still looked great then. 

Your mileage will vary on what "deep" is and how much weight you apply to that when voting, but I don't see his case being any less deep than someone like Rick Rude and I voted for him in 2016 and will vote for him again in 2026. Does Murakami have substantially less to go on than someone like Mariko Yoshida? She'll be around my top 30 so it's not something I'm worried about. 

Of course how GOOD you actually think a lot of the Murakami stuff is, that's another discussion. I think there's lots of good, though. 

[Mr JMML]

I want to see more Murakami after what I read. 

Some recommendations from 2010 onwards.

[Ma Stump Puller]

2 hours ago, Mr JMML said:

I want to see more Murakami after what I read. 

Some recommendations from 2010 onwards.

Sure, here's some. I will mention that Murakami doesn't actually wrestle much after the brain damage scare from 2007, he's off and on for the most part, so he definitely doesn't have the highs from his earlier work. His benefits come from his entertaining presence.

IGF 2.0./NEW duo series (02.06.2017/07.07.2017)

Tenryu Project: Arashi & Ryuichi Kawakami v him & NOSAWA (27.07.2015) 

Basically any of his many Kensuke Office tags (there's no specific match here, I just think watching them in general is worthwhile content) 

This amazing six-man tag from Kana-Pro II (I'm actually gonna link it because it's so good)

The Ashino squash from Gurentai (15.07.2015) (I covered this myself, quite fun for a basic squash) 

Daiki Inaba & Hiroki Murase vs. him & Yoshihiro Takayama; Gurentai again (11.12.2014) 

Probably his last properly great singles against Fuminori Abe (RJPW 22.4.2021)

There's probably more but that's just me going off what I've already seen 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mr JMML]

Thanks for the suggestions, I've already seen the 2011 trios match.