[2017-02-12-DDT-Nerima The Fighter] Akito & HARASHIMA vs Masakatsu Funaki & Yukio Sakaguchi

[Ma Stump Puller]

I don't generally care a whole lot about modern DDT, but the implication of HARASHIMA/Funaki as a matchup (and to my knowledge their only encounter) was way too curious to ignore. They start off, and it's a lot of tentative grappling as HARA pulls guard and sits on his back most of the time, with Funaki slowly trying to grab something. It's not particularly good, and it felt like just being there for the sake of it to get a slow start. The Sakaguchi/Akito bits ruled though, Saka threw these really nasty sharp kicks until he tried going for one on the apron and Akito caught his legs and basically slammed them knee-first as a sort of modified shin-breaker on there instead to work them over, which went into the main chunk of the control segment. HARA got to be a prick by stomping and standing on his busted leg, and Akito took the time to take his kickpad and guard off so they could get maximum discomfort. Typically long limb targeting sections can be hit and miss, however I think these two got into a great grove and got some actual fun out of destroying the leg: Akito at one point gets Saka into a Death Valley Driver set-up before then throws him knee-first onto the mat, another spot had him dodge a roundhouse from Saka to slap on a absolutely hellish-looking calf crusher after trying for a School Boy to get him down to the ground. Sick little spots like that really helped get this over with the crowd and myself and they were absolutely invested. The eventual hot tag by Funaki was really standard though; lots of kicks and a PK before he got caught with a low dropkick and gutwrench suplex by Akito to balance the books.

The HARASHIMA/Funaki exchanges were quite cool! We got a superplex and some hard strikes exchanged before Funaki won out with a slap and rolling wheel kick, usual stuff. The last few minutes was impressively done as Saka balanced his bad leg selling with doing moves, generally being undone due to his tendency to try to use the leg for striking offence and getting countered for his troubles like a typical dumb babyface. Akito rules with his wide range of knee-focused bombs and strikes while also realistically getting caught off-guard when he gets way too cocky for his own good and ends up overextending, so we get a nice cat/mouse tempo between the two as they try to get that one magic hold to win. The finishing stretch is messy in places but it just works wonders for the chaotic counter-heavy submission sequences the two end up having; Saka throwing gut punches to escape a figure-four setup to roll into a front guillotine rules. If wrestlers focused as much on working punches as they would anything else I'd say matches in general would be way better.

Anyway, this was great! Reminded me of the old DDT tapes I watched a while back, full of violence and lots of pretty smooth wrestling that focused more on grounded technique rather than the usual DDT flash you'd see. Even Funaki and his fairly minimalistic wrestling got a pass because he still looked pretty damn good trying to slap HARA's face off and was game to work his role in making the younger guys look cool. Pretty underrated scrap and absolutely worth checking out.