Jun Kasai

[Dylan Waco]

Discuss Here.

[InYourCase]

I'm not really a deathmatch fan, but Kasai has always had a unique charisma that has makes me check out his matches on occasion. His 2004 match with Marufuji is a blast. That being said, I hate his 2013 match with Masada from Wrestlecon. That's mostly Masada's fault because he's literally the worst, but Kasai wasn't much of a help. Someone who won't make my list, but I'd love to hear someone who likes him pimp him. He's a very interesting wrestler.

[Clayton Jones]

Likely to be my highest deathmatch wrestler, and I think he's added to his resume nicely since 2016. I haven't seen the Masada match mentioned above but their 2012 FREEDOMS Pain In Limit finals is one of my favorite deathmatches of all-time and one of my favorite matches of the decade. I also don't see what's so bad about Masada but I'll hardly be making a case for him so that's irrelevant. Kasai's strength is very much in his versatility, ironically I think he's a significantly worse deathmatch wrestler than a lot of his peers over the years, but a great character who knows how to work around his limitations and to his opponents' strengths. And more so than any of his peers he's transcended the genre and through sheer grisly determination put together a great career. I'll gladly watch him wrestle Yuki Ueno or G-Raver or anyone in between and will usually be glad I did.

[Boss Rock]

The glass and exposed ring match with Masahi Takeda in 2018 is terrific.

[elliott]

Can someone recommend like 10 Jun Kasai matches?

[Clayton Jones]

That's a good question as he's very much a breadth of career candidate more than a Top 10 Matches candidate. I'd say you have to start with the CZW Un F'n Believable tag from 2001 as that match kind of put him on the map among others. He has a lot of good tags w/Jaki Numazawa which is impressive because that guy's largely useless otherwise, very much the Minoru Fujita to his Ikuto Hidaka. I'd recommend their match VS Takashi Sasaki/Yuko Miyamoto from June 2006 in particular as a career match for Kasai. Otherwise there's some good recommendations mentioned above and I'm on a quest the next few years to find more stuff that makes a case for Jun. This time around I watched...

Jun Kasai VS Yuko Miyamoto - FREEDOMS 12/25/2013

Well this was the match of this batch I was most excited for and it might have been my least favorite. I really like Miyamoto and think he's a low key GWE candidate although I kind of doubt I'll get into him this time around. Unfortunately this match was just there. Not bad at all for a deathmatch, they built to the early spots nicely and mixed in some good strikes and basic work. But then they also sprinkled in crazy spots from the scaffold later like they were no big deal, stuff that definitely should have been played for big nearfalls or even the finish but barely got a reaction on the kickouts. And I don't know if it was because this was a Christmas show which tend to be a bit more relaxed but both guys just seemed to lack intensity.

Jun Kasai VS Kintaro Kanemura - Big Japan 1/28/2001

I forget how much of the Crazy Monkey gimmick was literally an animal gimmick early in Kasai's career. I remember stuff like the barbed wire bananas and people grabbing his tail Dragon Ball style, but this match reminded me of how much he'd actually work animal spots into his matches. It's definitely not my favorite era for him. I will say for the first half of this match he bumps and sells his ass off and makes some really nice comebacks. It's especially impressive since Kanemura seems to be on one and is pretty hard to reel in here. The second half of the match though Kasai is too focused on the character stuff and it falls flat for me.

Jun Kasai VS Wolf Star - ??? 7/1/2018

This is a match that looks like it took place in a garage or storage unit in front of maybe 30 people and it ruled. Very much a reminder of why I'm high on Kasai for GWE even if he has some underwhelming performances. Here he takes this glorified backyarder (although I kind of doubt backyard wrestling is a thing in Japan) and gives him and his friends a night they'll never forget, performing big and maybe giving a little too much but always looking like a star. He does eat Wolf Star up for the first half which I really enjoyed, for someone who worked as an underdog for most of his career I kind of like bully Crazy Monkey best. This is a YouTube novelty for certain.

Jun Kasai VS Ciclope - FREEDOMS 8/28/2015

This is only my second or third time seeing Ciclope and I'm curious, is he Halloween's son? Did he wear the Ciclope mask early in his career as a spiritual successor and then drop it? Either way he's a very good deathmatch wrestler and this rocked. Ciclope is the star for much of it but it's a match that's built to get him over and Kasai does a great job playing gatekeeper. This had the build and the strong fundamentals that I liked from the Miyamoto match earlier but with real payoff to the big spots late. Kasai takes crazy stupid abuse in a match that's not even the main event or for a title, and your mileage for stuff like that will vary. But if that's not your thing then suffice to say Kasai is probably not someone you need to be considering, because it's what he built his career on.