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Post by elliott on Dec 22, 2021 17:36:56 GMT -5
Josh Barnett vs Hideki Suzuki (IGF - 12/31/11)
Fucking awesome heavyweight shoot style match. Great mat work, stiff, dramatic. Just a killer match. Barnett rules. Check this shit out.
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Post by tetsujin on Dec 22, 2021 17:56:14 GMT -5
WoW I've never heard of this. Needless to say I'm hyped. Is there a link?
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Post by elliott on Dec 22, 2021 18:09:02 GMT -5
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Post by makaiclub on Dec 23, 2021 5:09:57 GMT -5
This version of Hideki Suzuki was great. Sometimes he'd totally phone it in for whatever reason (the common reason is likely that they weren't legit in their wrestling abilities but he'd put over Daichi Hashimoto more times than not) and that could cause a damper on his career at times but he is quality in these moments. ****1/2
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Post by tetsujin on Dec 23, 2021 13:03:15 GMT -5
Holy shit this was as intense, fluid, compelling and varied as the best shoot style matches you could think of. Top tier matwork and amazing use of the big moves. Loved that defiant dropkick by Hideki near the corner just after a rope break, for example. I don't really know what IGF is and I'm not really familiar with Barnett's pro wrestling matches, but holy shit. I want MORE. Definitely a contender for my next list.
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Post by elliott on Dec 23, 2021 13:07:02 GMT -5
Barnett vs Tamura
Barnett vs Moxley
These two are must watch. The Tamura match is a 2000s MOTDC and the Moxley match is in the lead for 2020s MOTD in my book.
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Post by tetsujin on Dec 23, 2021 13:17:04 GMT -5
Yeah I've watched the Mox match, (Moxley is my favourite current wrestler alongside Naito and Tanahashi), it was brutal. That Tamura match... mouth is watering.
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Post by elliott on Dec 23, 2021 13:23:23 GMT -5
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Post by fxnj on Jul 2, 2023 7:02:59 GMT -5
I remember voting "NO" on this back in the old DVDVR voting threads, and now I want to punch my past self for that. This was incredible and one of the best matches of the 2010's. I think when I initially saw it I just wasn't sure what to make of it, since I had no idea what "catch wrestling" was, who Hideki Suzuki was, and what Josh Barnett's background was. Now that I'm a little more familiar with all 3, I can see that this match actually has a really cool premise of two Billy Robinson trainees going out on an MMA show and showing how closely tied its roots are with catch-as-catch-can/early pro wrestling. Watching post-Tamura shoot-style has often left me depressed at how low standards have sunk (or depressed at how Funaki/Han footage is just lying around in a vault somewhere), but the intensity and technique on display here holds up compared to anything in the style. I don't think I've seen guys of this size moving with such speed and for such sustained ferocity as they do here. That opening leglock exchange is just unreal. Admittedly, it's kind of hard for me to find many examples of what sets the catch wrestling on display here apart from modern BJJ (though maybe that's the point of the match), but I think I could get kind of get the basic premise of catch wrestling placing more emphasis on inflicting pain on an opponent and outlasting them instead working for an immediate tap out like in BJJ. Note stuff like how Barnett grabs these headlocks where he leans his weight on Suzuki and twists his neck in a gruesome fashion. There's also a cool spot where he get his armbar attempt blocked and just transitions into a bicep slicer. Maybe a bit one-sided as pretty much all the cool offensive moments I can think of are from Barnett, but it didn't bother me.
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Post by tetsujin on Jul 2, 2023 9:09:16 GMT -5
I ended up voting for this. Just one of my very favourite recent discoveries alongside Jaguar/Galáctica and Tenryu/Muta.
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Post by microstatistics on Nov 7, 2023 21:12:19 GMT -5
Finally, a great match out of 2011. This lived up to the hype even if I'd place it below the Moxley and Tamura matches. Surely, Barnett is one of the best wrestlers of the last 20 years.
Excellent and relentlessly paced matwork, pitting the wizardry of Barnett against the tenacity of Hideki. At first glance, it seemed like a Barnett clinic but upon a second viewing, it felt fairly evenly worked. If anything, Barnett didn't really gain a substantial foothold until late into the match as Suzuki became to enervate. The selling of the latter was perhaps a little sloppy at the end but that's relatively minor. The suplexes/bombs near the end echoed high-end BattlARTs. Decent commentary as well. Clear MOTY even if the competition was weak.
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