[2018-08-20-BASARA] Ikuto Hidaka vs Fuminori Abe

[aaeo_]

This was very comedy based for a shoot-style adjacent match. Probably the closest in that vein that I've seen is that tag match with Mashimo and Hashi on FUTEN, which I coincidentally saw the day before they uploaded this to DDT Universe (so, thursday). I've seen people say Abe is a Sawa copycat but aside from inherited moves and working with the same people, I think that's not really true. Character-wise, he feels closer to that Shamrock getting slapped in the face gif than Sawa's natural underdog vibe. I love Abe's twitchy striking, which he exaggerates here to the point of self-parody. I thought all striking exchanges felt remarkably fluid, even though they're played for comedy most of the time. There's also a figure four countered by heel hook in this match, which is always great to see. Hidaka is getting  old, he even struggles to jump up to the apron early on, but he's still pretty great.  

Interesting, fun match.