[2015-05-31-Kani KING Produce] Keita Yano & Taro Yamada vs Shota & Tigre Baki

[Ma Stump Puller]

more detailed diving here

 

30+ minutes of grappling on some random dirty mats? Must be a Keita Yano match! Not satisfied with beating each other up we instead get Yano and Yamada teaming up against some fellow indie goobers. For real though, this was fun if you can get into the grimy conditions.

Yamada and Yano basically twist and bend their opponents up into some really nasty knots for a good portion of it and it's about as entertaining as you can imagine. Keita especially pulls a lot from WoS transitions here with how showy he is and to get over their whole stance as superior grapplers alongside occasionally pulling out some old-school dirty shit like jamming his foot into Baki's eye during a headlock struggle. Yamada is a quirky one here with some neat and fairly unique joint manipulation mostly on Shota's bad arm for the first half. 

The middle is weird in that it speeds up immensely with a snappy exchange between Tamura/Baki as they dodge around kicks from the other, but then it goes into a real long Dory-style headlock slog involving Shota and co dragging Keita into a uber long series of headlocks never-ending. I can at least say that they *tried* to make this work, Shota just isn't the guy for it though given his real lack of complexity working on the mat. I mean was it creative that they broke it by having all four blokes stuck in headlocks running into each other? Sure. Was it actually good, though? Not really. I did love the fact that this epic headlock leads to Keita getting his excuse to blade all over the place like the carny lad he is, turning the match from a technical exhibition to a mid-80's South bloodfest as things devolve into a lot of kicks and punches. We get a goofy cool spot where Keita flings himself off the window for a bootleg version of a rope-hung DDT before going into a big Brody-inspired comeback before randomly doing some cool kicks into a big running spear to even things out.

They definitely got the memo for the last third as it starts right off with Yamada and Baki beating the shit out of each other with leg kicks and elbows respectfully before going into some wacky spots like Keita's signature leapfrog senton and Yamada just straight-up ripping off Super Dragon in places. Baki had some good intensity with his shots and they work in sturdy hope spots where Baki seemingly has the advantage before getting shutdown before he can do anything serious, like him throwing multiple leg kicks before Keita baits him into a ankle lock, etc etc. Really liked how it went mostly into the two basically punching Baki for pins rather than attempting fancy submissions; given they hadn't worked before it was logical that they'd instead just try to end things quickly. Shota gets in for a gloriously awful hot tag as he hits dainty offence like a Russian leg sweep, just awful shit in general. 

Thankfully they kept a good tempo going into the finish as Baki threw hard kicks at Yamada (including a real mean backdrop at one point) before Keita stuck in and managed to win with some uber contrived submission after a couple of backbreakers. All in all it's pretty much the exact kind of experimental match that Keita Yano was infamous for around this time, so I feel like it's going to be pretty much Marmite depending on who's having to watch it. What doesn't help is that Shota/Baki...aren't that good as opponents. Shota is a very basic wrestler who barely catches your attention in that everything he does is basic and not particularly given much flash to it, he can do everything decent but he has nothing to give against these two bar a body to move around with. Baki is better, though still suffers from not really getting a look in bar some decent moments. It really felt like Keita and co were steering the boat for the most part: given the structure of the match this was hardly surprising given they controlled most of it. I'd still say this was good though if only because it has a lot of charm and variety on the table despite the lack of a ring.