[2000-07-20-BattlARTS] Takeshi Ono vs Katsumi Usuda

[KB8]

This was like 40% Battlarts, 60% New Japan juniors. It's not really what you want from these two, but you take that 40% when it's there and I guess if nothing else it's interesting seeing how they approach the 60%. There's a kind of novelty aspect to it. It's a little experimental. I don't know man, you want Aquemini André 3000 but at this point you take what you can get and even The Love Below had 'A Life in the Day of Benjamin André.' Ono was actually really fun dicking it up and working full rudo. He went after Usuda's leg for a spell and would hold on longer than necessary on rope breaks, then he went after the arm and approached that the same way. In between he even raked Usuda's eyes across the ropes. He was visibly pulling a lot of his shots though, his punches mostly grazing and his kicks thrown with less mustard, some of them at three quarter speed. Usuda was doing the same so maybe they just decided they wanted to get through this show with all their teeth for a change? Considering Usuda was pulling double duty on the card it's hard to blame them. And yet we will, because we are the harshest of critics. Usuda channeling Fujiwara for a few minutes there was cool, at least. He rolled out the headstand counter to the Boston Crab and even followed up with some Fujiwara-style headbutts, rocking all the way back before delivering the blow. It's hard to complain about Takeshi Ono footage being available on the internet.