[2014-04-19-BRAVES-SECOND COMING] Keita Yano vs Shota

[Ma Stump Puller]

This was a marvellous little match from what is considered Keita's most erratic and inconsistent years. The first five minutes of this is completely focused on wrist leverage....

based

Lots of rolling around and spots more reminiscent of 80's Catch work you'd see in a NJPW opener or early UWF outing than anything modern as the two battled to keep control over the match through the two battling for wrist dominance with Shota having consistent counters to Keita's attempts trying to slip out and gain advantage. It was really refreshing to see something done so clean despite it being so fundamentally basic at its core as well; typically we're used to seeing a big explosion of action or some sloppy huge spots so just sticking to one thing and doing that one thing incredibly well was great to see for a change. Then you'd have Keita Yano being his usual self by trying to do throwback Steve Wright transitions and fucking them up lol.

They still manage to keep things on track by still following the limb work path set up excellently at the start, which shows why you want to establish stuff like that as soon as possible for reasons like this because it makes building on it incredibly easy to do. The rest of the match follows the usual Keita formula of him sprawling and throwing out loads of shoot/Llave technique that astounds every time you see it in action. He controls the action for the middle half with arm work before getting too cocky playing around with his opponent with stomps in the corner, letting him catch Keita out with a chop block to the leg while his back was turned. Shota follows up with the Bret leg-work routine that he was similarly throwing out around this time, having him work it via the ropes with those goofy hip-attacks and ring post alongside a Bret-style figure-four using said post. solid Engrish drama built by Keita struggling to walk, refusing to surrender when asked by the ref when he's stuck on the floor leading Shota to angrily shout "STOP IT" and HE CAN'T WALK" felt like a Roman Reigns COVID-era talky segment only good this time.

Continued work with a figure four bit as Keita battled for leverage by trying to wiggle around and reverse the hold. The big change in momentum was particularly nifty feigning trying to remove Shota's other leg to remove pressure to then quickly roll to the ropes to escape, cool bit despite it being in a typically overexposed spot. We get some strong Keita selling as he battles through his usual roll-ups with only one good leg, forcing him to work super defensive, sparingly being able to do moves and forcing him, as a result, to get more creative with what he actually uses. That plays into the finish as well as Shota takes too long going for the killing submission, allowing Keita to escape and snap on a very cool Cravat into shoulder pin (Keita himself describes this as a "Three Quarter Nelson Switch" so there) to win the match.

As I said at the start this was a little match for sure, but it's full of just top quality technical wrestling as a whole that it's absolutely worth the watch if you can search it out. Just very minimalistic as a whole with some experimental elements thrown in places that they bizarrely make sense, like that Wright botch mentioned earlier. Any normal match that would be a fuck up that would at least disrupt everything and make the action look clumsy, here it's an actual development that adds to the match (it adds to the pre-existing limb work!!) which says a lot about how well they had this ironed out. Fun dark horse outing that flows very well for a 15-minute mini-mat wrestling epic.