[1999-10-17-BattlARTS/Michinoku Pro] Yuki Ishikawa & Great Sasuke vs Alexander Otsuka & Jinsei Shinzaki

[Jetlag]

This is one of those matches where I'm kind of stunned how it's been lost to time. It aired on Samurai TV, it has 4 quasi-big names of japan independent wrestling, and it's a 25 minute match in front of a big crowd where everyone goes all out to give the fans what they want. They could've easily coasted here and just done their crowd pleasing signature spots, but in between that there were some really good exchanges and a number of smart spots. Otsuka working lucharesu exchanges with Sasuke is all kinds of fun, and he and Ishikawa have some brief but great sections where they hit the mat and brain eachother with nasty headbutts. Both Sasuke and Shinzaki had their working boots on. Dug all the well timed thrust kicks from Shinzaki and Sasuke was laying in all of his kicks aswell as busting out all his big highspots. The bomb throwing at the end was something else. I don't associate the BattlARTS crew with the kind of big bombs you see in junior matches so seeing Otsuka eating a massive powerbomb off the top or Ishikawa getting dumped with a huge double German Suplex was wild. There was also some nifty team work emphasing moments and they switched control in such a way that you couldn't guess the outcome. Ishikawa countering Shinzakis rope walk was great and just the kind of character moment you want from a weird stylistic crossover match.