Wataru Sakata

[Grimmas]

Control21 said:

Sakata was a RINGS dojo product and spent most of his career in shoot-style before working Zero-1 and HUSTLE in the 2000s. He wasn’t the flashiest of wrestlers but was a solid hand for the RINGS undercard for several years before becoming a similar roster member for more diverse promotions. He went from facing the likes of Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, Nikolai Zouev, and Kiyoshi Tamura to going face-to-face with CW Anderson, Jun Kasai, Tenryu, and Super Crazy. Certainly a colorful career worth examining.

Recommended matches –

vs Hiromitsu Kanehara (6/20/1998)

vs Kiyoshi Tamura (7/20/1998)

vs Masayuki Naruse (12/13/1997)

vs Naohiro Hoshikawa (12/15/2002)

vs Genichiro Tenryu (3/12/2006)

[Jetlag]

Quite great as a pissed off asshole in shootstyle matches punching people in the liver. The 2002 Hoshikawa match is an excellent violent little stifffest and his U-Style work is great. Probably spent a bit too much time in HUSTLE and I haven't really seen anything amazing from him in RINGS, but there sure are a lot of workers worse than Wataru Sakata. 

[TheBean]

I would recommend Toshiaki Kawada & Kendo Kashin vs. Shinya Hashimoto & Wataru Sakata (12/05/03). Sakata vs Kawada is stand out part of this match.

Gaora has it up still on YouTube

 

Also recently watched Low Ki vs. Wataru Sakata (Zero One 08/31/03) and really liked that one alot.