Masanobu Kurisu

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[GOTNW]

There are few things I love in wrestling as much as an old dude that stiffs the shit out of people paying no heed to their safety. He's someone I'd love to include if I can find enough footage to justify it.

[Tim Cooke]

He has the 4/1/90 FMW tag in KH and he was a key part of the 6/30/90 New Japan 10 man, both of which are great but there's just not that much else on TV and/or the other matches aren't blow away great.

[KB8]

I wanted to throw him a low vote in 2016, but couldn't really justify it based on the lack of footage. I don't even know if any more Kurisu has been unearthed since last time, but I do know I've watched a good chunk of what's out there now and I need to find space for him this go-around. 

Last night I watched the 6/90 New Japan tag that Tim mentions and he was incredible in it as a vicious, hatemongering wee bastard. He also has the Tarzan Goto match from FMW (1/7/90), the awesome Hashimoto match (8/3/90), the Aoyagi match from 2/5/91, some fun six-man stuff in WAR, at least one great extended squash in Kitao Pro (the debut show, I think), and that's not to mention the other appearances on the New Japan handheld stuff that I haven't watched yet. 

He's not for everyone. I like how stingy he is with the selling because it gives his matches a feeling of being on the verge of breaking down, almost to the point where it sometimes looks like he's SHOOTING~ on his opponent. The "he makes his opponents earn it" bit won't always fly for some people though and I get that, but I generally love how uncooperative it all looks. Then of course there's the fact he just seems like a miserable prick and his general conduct lends itself very well to matches where the participants do not like each other and lots of potatoes are flung about and really that's the best kind of wrestling (prolly). He also scores very well on the "I would watch this wrestler against pretty much anybody if it popped up on YouTube" and that has to count for something. 

[GOTNW]

Few wrestlers have instantly enamored me like Masanobu Kurisu, and he's someone whom I'm gonna be especially focusing on. Here is this gnarly old asshole who can work the mat and whose holds look really tight, but for some reason is is just absolutely in love with destroying people. And when I say destroy, I mean he's up there with Ikeda, Fujita, Yumiko Hotta and friends in terms of all time great violence bringers in pro wrestling. This guy will flat out shoot Headbutt, Slap and Punt Kick people's heads off the canvas, he doesn't care one bit.

I believe his match vs Shoji Akiyoshi (that would be young Jado!) is the first one I ever watched, and, I don't remember whether I had watched the full or clipped version (I think it was the clipped one), but there's a handheld of the entire match online, and. Man. Just a truly transcedental experience of violence which had me questioning how come stuff like this is legal in the first place. Five star GOTNW match.

Want to hear of another case of Kurisu destroying someone you wouldn't expect? Takashi Okamura, the first president of Dragon Gate, got ethered by Kurisu at a Kitao pro show in 1994. When it comes to japanese wrestling trivia, I don't think it gets any better than that. If the sheer fact that the first president of Dragon Gate used to be a kimono wearing indy karate worker whom Kurisu wrecked with Jon Jones Clinch Elbows doesn't move you, do you really have a heart?

Rest assured, his case isn't all about one sided beatdowns. The 1/4/1990 Kurisu/Dragon Master-Onita/Goto tag is a classic, all time great chaotic tag, up there with anything of its kind. Want another great violent tag brawl? Kurisu/Leduc vs Onita/Murdoch features a versatile Kurisu performance: on one hand he acts like a giant prick against Onita, just tearing into him; yet does some quality stooging when he has to deal with Murdoch and his punches.

Not every match of his is going to go to those lengths of absurd violence, but even when he keeps the ruthlessness to a medium, Kurisu still feels like Kurisu. The 1991 Aoyagi matches are a good primer of a more restrained Kurisu: the 5.2. match looks more like what you'd expect a Kurisu-Aoyagi match with them immediately going after each other's throat, while the 21.9. one feels more complete and conclusive.

By now you've probably processed enough information to be able to assume Kurisu would fare well as an invader. BUT! Not only we do get to see him in that role in New Japan, he squares off against Hashimoto in a terrific singles match with incredible heat: it's violent, but it's at least equally as successful thanks to its smart lay-out as it is the brutality. Along with that, there's a quite unique tag in which he tags with Animal Hamaguchi vs. Choshu and Koshinaka: it's not the hate filled slaughterhouse you might want, but it is still an incredibly fun tag made by the unique atmosphere completely made by Kurisu's presence. He's so super high level at conveying a prick, the crowd almost has no choice but to boo him when he does, well, literally anything.

Want to see Kurisu in another role? His 1994 WAR match against Daikokubo Benkei (here known as Arashi) sees Kurisu essentially pinball for a ridiculously looking super heavyweight with sumo offence-and it rules.

Kurisu pops up in Big Mouth Loud in 2005/6 as a 60+ year old. He's past his prime, a little slower and maybe not quite intense-but he's still menacing, still hard hitting, still an asshole-still Kurisu. I can only be thankful age doesn't affect one's ability to throw an unprotected chairshot as much as it does a Tope Suicida. He looks about what you'd expect old man Kurisu to do against Usuda and Nakano, while in his match vs. Kido they essentially prove that even as senior citizens they could work an entertaining old school technical bout (the match also had a section of entertaining gimmickery, which they could afford now as veterans). I consider the Usuda match the best of the bunch.

So yeah. Based on what I've seen so far and what I appreciate in wrestling, I really have no reason not to conclude this dude isn't, say, a top 20 wrestler of all time for me.