[2022-10-09-GLEAT-Ver. EX] Tetsuya Izuchi vs Kaito Ishida

[corwo]

I don’t know what got into Izuchi, but he wrestled with more vigor than I’ve ever seen him compete with before. From the outset, you could feel the hatred between Izuchi and Ishida. Izuchi jumped Ishida and kicked him square in the head several times. Even Izuchi’s elbow strikes, which I’ve often found ineffective, were ruthless. Once things went to the outside, Ishida didn’t allow Izuchi any respite, repeatedly bouncing his head off the apron and delivering thunderous kicks of his own.

Neither wanted to give the other an inch, looking to prove that their arsenal was the strongest. Ishida got busted open from a kick around five minutes in. Even the usual modern tropes that would typically annoy me, such as the occasional no-selling and repeated strike exchanges, felt purposeful. Izuchi and Ishida were merely out to hurt one another. When the referee got in Ishida’s way of that, he was pushed, and Tetsuya and Kaito continued to duke it out on the outside. Their kicks reverberated throughout Korakuen, with each passing blow feeling like it could be the one to end the match.

Izuchi went for a second apron PK, but this time, Ishida had him scouted and hit a gnarly dragonscrew off the apron, only to deliver a PK of his own. Too often, these kinds of matches lose me in a cascade of near falls. Here, Izuchi and Ishida saved a few key two counts for the closing stretch and milked them for the maximum impact. It’s a minor issues, but I wish Izuchi would stop doing his Ospreay-lite spinning back elbow. The move rarely looks good. A flurry of kicks and suplexes meant neither was able to gain the advantage, but Izuchi eventually succumbed to a Tiger Suplex.

Had Izuchi worked over the cut, this probably would have been elevated to excellent status. As is, it’s a very good kick fest between two guys with varying degrees of talent. I’ve recently been down on Izuchi after his less-than-stellar showings against El Lindaman and Seichi Ikemoto. But if this match is any indication, GLEAT may have two stars on its hands.