Konosuke Takeshita

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

Makai Club #1 said:

"Since making his debut at 17 Year's old in the Nippon Budokan against El Generico in 2012, in a really good match btw, Takeshita has been tipped for the top of the card. And 9 years later, Takeshita has grew into a great offensive wrestler who is both agile and strong, making him one of the more unique wrestlers in Japan. His German suplexes are killer as he just launches them. It didn't take him a while to really get to that point as his body has grown in size and muscle (remember he started when he was 17), and his style has evolved since then. But regardless of style, Takeshita has always had good-great matches in his career. Takeshita's rookie year won't be compared to Akiyama's or Ronda Rousey's but he had a good set of matches against the likes of Kota Ibushi, Yukio Sakaguchi, Kenny Omega, Hikaru Sato at such a young age. The matches only got better as he matured and grew into the Future of DDT spot that DDT trusted him in as Kota Ibushi was doing more New Japan work and eventually left out-right. And in 2016, he won his first KO-D Openweight and hasn't look back since. Since doing that, Takeshita has had a great series with a plethora opponents such as Daisuke Sasaki, Tetsuya Endo, HARASHIMA, Shuji Ishikawa while growing into the ace spot as he went along. 2018 was when the pieces began to really come together when it comes to the ring-work where he started deliver some of the best performances in the company's history - a company that had Dick Togo vs Antonio Honda, remember. So this isn't Takeshita out performing indie scrubs. One thing I'd admire about Takeshita is how much he works outside of the main events. When you look at other modern Ace's like Hiroshi Tanahashi an Kazuchika Okada, they have a natural tendency to take it easy in tag matches or matches against lower card guys, but I never get that sense with Takeshita. He'll work hard with anyone he's working against, whether it be a comedy ddt act (Kazuki Hirata), a generational rival (HARASHIMA) or an out of the box outsider (Meiko Satomura, Chris Brookes) and he's more than likely going to have the MOTN with them. I'm not sure where I rank him as I don't want to work myself into placing him extremely high as I'm writing but he's a lock for me. Definitely one of the modern Puro guys that people should check out, regardless of your notions about DDT as a promotion. "

[Boss Rock]

I really enjoyed his 2017. His 2018 was a bit dull but DDT as a whole didn't do much for me that year. I'm really interested in doing a deeper dive on his early career and getting caught up on current DDT. His offense is terrific as he's such an athletic and explosive guy. The only main criticism I have is iffy limb selling, but he's hardly the only one.

[Jmare007]

I think this takes from the Okada thread could work better here.

15 hours ago, DylanZero said:

Nevermind the legends and all time greats, but even among his contemporaries like Kento (who I already said I don't think is that great), Kaito, & Takeshita he's miles behind in playing different roles and getting the most out of his own Ace role. He really is the definition of just a guy who happened to have the right look and come along at the right time and got pushed at the top tier. Again I'm not saying he never had great matches, but even his great matches aren't a huge plus for me. Every year he'll have 3-5 great matches and yet he'll get more opportunities than nearly every single person to have them in Japan and elsewhere. His batting average isn't higher than like a dozen guys on his own roster, so how can I rank him an all time great? I don't see it at all.

14 hours ago, DylanZero said:

 

As far as Takeshita I saw that guy have huge main events with Akiyama that are on the level of Okada's top matches and also elevate El Lindaman in a way Okada has never even come close to in a singles match against a heavy underdog opponent like that in a matter of like a month last year. There's just no variety at all with Okada. If he's not in a specific role, the house of cards all falls down just like I said.

 

 

Takeshita is a worker that I "waited" for, for a long time until I just gave up. He's still very young so I don't deny he could've figured it out in 2020 but his run as Ace of DDT was mostly a disappointment to me. I think the biggest spark I saw from him during that period was in the 2018 Tag Team Shuffle tournament DDT did with Big Japan, were Takeshita actually worked differently and did great against very different opponents in fun tag matches (topping it off with a really good final). I thought he was going to shine from that moment on but it was once again same ol' same ol' with him as soon as he went back to solely DDT. Saying Okada is miles behind him playing different roles is kinda baffling to me because Takeshita has been always been a bleh Ace in my eyes -in terms of in ring performance- at least up until middle of 2019 when I just gave up and stopped watching him.

Even reading Makai's nomination I thought every singles encounter he had with Endo as an Ace always lacked something to take it over the top and qualify as a legit great match, same with the Sasaki matches (though I have a bias against Sasaki as his strikes are so bad I can't into him at all, even though I know sucking at striking is kinda part of his character). I do like most of his matches with HARASHIMA and Shuji Ishikawa. though that's always been more because of his opponents than anything Konosuke ever did.

I feel like Kono was never able to get out of a "go go go" style, as he's not good at selling and his matches are about bomb throwing and making early work rather meaningless. And I wouldn't be against that to be honest if it weren't for the fact that a lot of the times the crowd does not react to him as much as others. And that's mainly because he lacks in the in the charisma department. For that reason I think he works best in tag matches because his offense -which is probably the best Japan and has been for quite a while at this point-  and overall style suits better when other people are doing the heavy lifting in the other parts of a match.

This sounds way more critical than I intended to. I think it's because I've always had so much hopes for Takeshita as I saw him as a once in a generation prodigy and I just have never seen him rise up to that (admittedly stupid) expectation.

Having said all that, I'm all for changing my mind. Specially if he turned things around since the 2nd half of 2019 till today. Any new recommendations? I've been meaning to watch the Akiyama match so I'll get to it.

[Boss Rock]

I like Takeshita too but have had similar issues, especially with being bland and not a great seller. But his offense honestly has to rank up there for best in the world and his big matches are often at least very good, so I'm willing to give him a shot.

[DylanZero]

Just watch his tournament run plus his Akiyama matches. Akiyama was a MOTYC last year IMO and I loved how he performed vs. Lindaman in their singles match which led me to making that comment. The response Boss Rock gave me included guys like Kojima in 2017 which was a legacy veteran in the G1, as big as Okada himself, and a completely different dynamic than Lindaman. A better comp would be Okada vs. Ishimori last year in NJC and one guy did much better than the other in that situation and it wasn't Okada. But really any situation I think you could point to and Takeshita has at least made something decent of it, whether a real legend like Akiyama, a super small u underdog guy like Lindaman, intergender matches, tag matches, six mans, Takeshita has added to them favorably. 

 

That said, he's not on my radar for GWE at all, he's just one of the more enjoyable modern heavyweights and I like him favorably as an Ace wrestler compared to Okada and Kento (although admittedly Kento is more charismatic but as a worker give me Takeshita). I like him and that's on a roster whose surrounding cast I largely don't enjoy at all to actively think are bad, but I can always count on someone like him to make the best of it which is nice, but to me he's not one of the best ever, even by 2026 some crazy run would have to happen for me to consider Takeshita.