Keisuke Yamada/Black Buffalo

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

Jetlag here:

"super interesting worker. He looked good in the early 90s working as a shootstylist. Then he became the hope of IWA Japan and kind of started wrestling like Tomoaki Honma. Spunky young fired up guy who is willing to bleed and has a knack for unique violent spots, and can do actual wrestling too. I need to watch more Black Buffalo but I've seen good stuff from him in that role as well."

[Clayton Jones]

For a while I was still stubbornly getting Osaka Pro DVDs in the early 2000s despite most shows being mediocre at best. Black Buffalo was always a highlight of every undercard tag or thankful main event he ended up in. He brought a flare and crispness to his work that was way beyond most of the guys around him. I'm pretty ignorant of his career otherwise but if I can fit him in I'd be very curious to learn more.

[Jetlag]

20 minutes ago, Clayton Jones said:

For a while I was still stubbornly getting Osaka Pro DVDs in the early 2000s despite most shows being mediocre at best. Black Buffalo was always a highlight of every undercard tag or thankful main event he ended up in. He brought a flare and crispness to his work that was way beyond most of the guys around him. I'm pretty ignorant of his career otherwise but if I can fit him in I'd be very curious to learn more.

Osaka Pro pretty much served as a retirement home for ex-deathmatch whipping boys. Buffalo, Kikutaro and Kuishinbo Kamen all used to get carved up. Kamen (Akinori Tsukioka) was also a very talented wrestler in his IWA Japan days.

Before Osaka Pro, Buffalo was Keisuke Yamada. He started out working obscure feds like Oriental Pro and NSPW doing shootstyle bouts:

 

As you can see, he made use of his judo background.

 

Eventually he joined IWA Japan becoming the owner(?) of the company. He would work really hard on those cards, bleed like mad and take crazy bumps. Even in the deathmatches he would display more skill than you usually saw in these brawls. He had especially great chemistry with Tarzan Goto. He also fought Goto in Shin-FMW a few times, although Shin FMW footage is extremely difficult to find.

 

He had a pretty great match against Ishii of all people in 1998:

 

As far as his IWA Japan work goes, you can pretty much just search his name and watch any match he's in and you can be guaranteed that he will work hard, bleed and give his all. I really want to dive more into his Black Buffalo work because I've seen him looking pretty damn good in random matches.

[Clayton Jones]

Awesome! I wish I could remember some of the more notable Black Buffalo stuff off the top of my head. I'll dig through some old notes and see if I can find anything.

Also clearly that should have been "flair," not "flare." GWE apparently has my brain all mixed up and we're only on week 1.