[2017-03-30-BJW] Daisuke Sekimoto vs Hideki Suzuki

[superkix]

This was a condensed version of their time limit draw from earlier in the month, with the same sense of struggle and sluggishness in the back half. Suzuki once again displays his awesome in-ring awareness. I love the way he manipulates Sekimoto's fingers in order to lock him in the stretch plum. Even when Sekimoto manages to escape, Suzuki stays on him with a cravate, holding onto it after Daisuke tries to slam his way out, and then working that into a neckbreaker. He does such a good job of staying on top Sekimoto, not giving him much room to breath if any. Sekimoto was pretty great here too, selling Suzuki's strikes so well. I really like how he uses a sleeper to distract Suzuki long enough to hit the German suplex hold. I can't wait to see what Suzuki does with the belt. He feels like such a special attraction and when he's wearing the purple trunks, you know he's got his working boots on.

[KB8]

I loved a whole bunch of this. Suzuki was rocking the purple again so you already know he was top drawer, but I could count on one finger the amount of times I've enjoyed Sekimoto this much and that was when he wrestled Suzuki the last time. Their previous match was the thirty minute draw from earlier in the month and this had a lot of the same qualities. This was a tighter affair at only nineteen minutes, but it was fully-formed and they built on some of that groundwork laid before. The sense of struggle they managed to convey was really impressive and the early hold-trading was great. Suzuki is always adding cool and nasty little touches to his matwork, like digging his knee into Sekimoto's ankle joint or bending a wrist at horrible angles. It all felt very MUGAish. Sekimoto was really vocal with his selling as well so you bought all that joint manipulation hurting like a bastard. He also reversed a top wristlock into this rough key lock of sorts that looked like it could've snapped Suzuki's forearm. After that opening spell they moved into a short burst of strikes, and I shit you not the first forearm Suzuki threw was a Battlarts Hall of Fame level brain-scrambler. Maybe Sekimoto's taken so many crowbars to the skull at this point that his reactions to this stuff are genuine, but I thought he sold a bunch of Suzuki's strikes throughout the match amazingly. There was almost no goofy hulk up fighting spirit and when he got clocked with a true screamer he went with his best dead-eyed "oh Christ where even am I?" Kawada stare. Plus he'll always leather you back so we got some monstrous clubbering in return. After a cool spot where Suzuki catches Sekimoto mid-tope with a forearm (which Sekimoto sells by laying half dead on the apron) they go back to this awesome MUGA/BJW hybrid right through to the finish. Like in the last match it was Suzuki who had the edge in grappling, but Sekimoto is a brick shithouse with enough freakish strength to make up for it. Suzuki was dogged going for the octopus stretch, twisting Sekimoto's fingers for leverage and crawling all over him at one point, but Sekimoto could either muscle him up into a torture rack or drag himself to the ropes. By the end of the last match you got the sense that if one of them could've hit their finisher it would've been over. This had the same struggle over those finishers, the same sense that it would only take one. There was this great bit where Sekimoto was straining so hard to hit the deadlift German that I expected his gum shield to fly out and kill a person sitting front row. Really good match.