[2002-10-02-GCM The Contenders] Minoru Suzuki & Tsuyoshi Kosaka vs Caol Uno & Osami Shibuya

[Ma Stump Puller]

While popular sites state that Suzuki returned to wrestling in 2003, one might argue that he actually did so in 2002, or at least was gearing up to it anyway. This is a shoot-style tag match that one could definitely debate being legit or not, for me I'd say this is definitely worked all things considered given there's a couple of spots thrown in and everyone here was noticeably holding back a fair bit when it came to the grappling. It's noticeably also not on any major MMA sites (which says nothing given even clear works get on some fighters legit records, but still). This was a grappling-only match, so no strikes or the sort permitted.  

Anyway, the match. Quite cool. There's a lot of post-PRIDE tendencies here with lots of tentative guard-pulling and focus on defence, though the match itself still has a ton of really flush pushes for submissions and whatnot. Kosaka gets his fancy TK-Guard shit in on Shibuya as the two just seamlessly go from stance to stance with uber skilled mat-work. Kosaka here is the man, he's just bitching out these younger guys with seeming ease. Of course the main interest comes from seeing Suzuki in action, and yeah it's pretty fun to see him do this kind of stuff. He does tricky stuff like faking a handshake to try to grab a arm off Uno to a awesome spot later on where he rams Shibuya's headfirst into the turnbuckle while he's trying to pull guard with his whole body. Not quite his cartoonish persona yet and plays much more of a straight-laced scrapper who finds any opportunity to get some pain going, at one point just casually pulling out a can-opener purely just to make things uncomfortable. It's also quite interesting how they work in the tag gimmick in a actual shoot-style match with the older Suzuki and co shutting down the ring more to keep the action on their side for quick and easy tags while the more disjointed younger side prefer to just freestyle and tag out whenever things get too hot for them. 

First fall comes when Kosaka does a solid job hooking his leg on Shibuya's arm while in back mount, forcing him to wiggle and get caught in a full on cross armbreaker for the tap-out. The second comes when Shibuya is teasing getting a submission win back on the latter before he then quickly tags out to Suzuki who mangles the guy in a rear naked choke while he's exposed, finishing off the match then and there. All things considered this is DEFINITELY a grapplefuck, but if you are really into the more RINGS-style of working these then this is definitely very enjoyable. If you aren't then there's not a whole lot to really get into given this is all just high-end grapplers just wangling it out for a good 20 minutes or so with Rob Zombie (???) blaring most of the time. Weird oddity of a showing all things considered.