My U-STYLE Review from DVDVR144.

[Guest DEAN RASMUSSEN]

 

The WAAAY too big thang that is DVDVR 144 is at the beloved DVDVR site. Groove to my U-STYLE review here and now:

 

U-STYLE (10/6/2003)

(by DEAN RASMUSSEN)

I love the U-Style. U-Style is Kiyoshi Tamura picking up the RINGS mantle that Maeda had a good run with. Tamura has injected a pro-style psychology to create this sort of ELO version of the Beatles as opposed to BattlARTS Cheap Trick version of the Beatles. It's not as fun as BattlARTS but it has a pristine virtuosity of shootstyle that I admire more than crave. So it isn't as great as 1997-1999 BattlARTS, but Jesus fucking Christ, what is? This tournament drew nobody to Koraken hall because they have one draw and that is Tamura. Tamura runs the promotion and has appeared on two of the four shows. Thus, this is basically a WWE show with only OVW trainees in all the matches. But the difference is that all these U-Style guys a fucking awesome and you would want to actually get a tape of U-Style. And Phil Schneider did. And I taped it from him and now I review it. For you. My beloved.

 

I drink a Hoffbauer and scan a thousand conservative websites as the enormous rules to U-Style are thrown up on the screen in Japanese. The only rule you really need to know about is that they use the RINGS point system where you get 5 points to begin with and every knoskdown and ropebreak costs you a point. So that adds a booking dimension to the already psychologically sound booking of having every finish required to be a knock-out or submission.

 

Katsuhisa Fujii vs Ryu Echigo: Schneider has a story on all these guys and they all elude me. Katsuhisa has tall Taue93-esque hair so I love him. Ryu has a crewcut and he suplexes and crushes with kicks early but sells the ankle lock attempt before spinning into a reversal. He makes with the bitch slaps to the face that allows Katsuhisa to make the Triangle Choke counter that Ryu turns into the Malenko-Eddy Keylock sequence where Eddy would power into a powerslam. Fuji wins with a German in a very slight, very brief, very opening match.

 

Kazuki Okubo vs Manabu Hara:

Manabu is nouvelle BattlARTS and looks like the singer for a new metal band- what with the goatee and short hair and severe expression all the time. Kazuki looks like the junior class president from your high school. He looks all pure and chaste but you know that he has shared the scent of stinky pinky with his debate teammates after fingering the valedictorian. He has adorable hair that says all the U-Style rats tap to his fierce love. BattlARTS boy is all fucking great in this, being all slow and methodical but completely unstoppable with his precision- like everything you love about Joe Malenko's matwork. He swarms on Mr Adorable and carries the match with his dickish punches to the sternum in the guard. Okubo the Pussymagnet just can't manage the hate that someone trained by Ishikawa and Usuda can, so you want Hara on offense because you get weird ass heel heat as Okubo fights out of Manabu's far superior matwork. Okubo gets all sloppy with the matwork midmatch as he can't follow Hara's lead. They stand up and start kicking each other and it's the equivalent of two guys in Memphis in 1982 trading punches after exhausting the headlock spot. Hara gets caught in a Cross Armbreaker and loses a point. Hara goes for a guillotine choke and gets all sloppy again so Hara goes into the mount and punches pretty boy in the mouth a bunch as a dozen aching cooters in the audience squeal in protest. Okubo gets a bodyscissors in and Hara tries to figure out what to do with this guy. He opts for kicking him and kneeing him in the back of the head- just like you would. Okubo hits a sidewalk slam and I am baffled. He goes for the keylock and I am back into the realm of shootstyle. They stand up and kick each other and Hara gets knocked down to lose another point. He sinks in the choke on poon-magnet and cooter-master punches Hara's ribs to escape and the crowd is stoked. Hara stands him up and starts kicking him again and flies into a sweet Cross Armbreaker for his first points. They roll through some choke attempts, a few keylock attempts. Okubo fights for the CAB but Hara locks his hands and rolls through and gets the mount and Okubo rolls to his stomach and spins into a kneebar and Hara fights into a mount and it all kinda falls to pieces. They kick each other for a while and this is going kinda long for two guys who don't actually know what they are doing. Hara hits a fucking GNARLEY German suplex and sinks in the choke but Okubo gets to his feet. Okubo gets another knockdown and Hara doesn't answer the count and I'm questioning this match. Hara does a far better German than anybody else in this tournament and the German is the finisher of choice. Either way, Okubo his having young furtive sex with 18 year old Japanese women and you are touching yourself to the Paris Hilton video. There's some heel heat for ya. Postmatch, they hug and kiss and french kiss and have actual male manly sex right there in the ring. It ruled.

 

Kyosuke Sasaki vs Naoki Kimura:

Naoki Kimura has the worst tattos in wrestling. He might as well have the entire cast of "Friends" tattooed across his back they are so uncool. They are big and stupid and hideous- akin to one of those (SST) Overkill album covers all over his back and arms. He's not very good but his tattooos will keep transfixed for the whole match and that's more than Rob Van Dam can say. Sasaki has bad hair and the look of a broken man- as if he had hoped to get into the advertising business but a series of sidetracks and meth-amphetamine addictions caused him to become a shootstyle worker. He has the dead eyes of a stripper. Kimura swarms on him early and none of it is very smooth like you like your fixed shoot matches. Kimura gets a single leg and you are impressed by the shittiness of his tattoos. You are transfixed as they award him a point for some reason. Sasaki gets a Crucifix in and suddenly this picks up. Sasaki hits the kneebar and........ ah, I get transfixed with Kimura's back tattoo- it's kinda like that skeleton of an angel that Lisa Simpson finds, but not as cool. Sasaki hits another kneebar and Kimura is losing on points. Sasaki kicks tattoo boy in the head for another point and they have a spirited kicking section where Sasaki ends up doing a beautifully elaborate roll into a crossarmbreaker for the tap out of young tattoo boy. Post match, they annoy me with even more indie hugs.

 

Hiroyuki Ito vs Ryuki Ueyama:

Ito vs Ueyama is the reason you get the U-Style. Ueyama is like the world's greatest Tango dancer- he is just graceful and flawless, the next great shootstyle fighter. Ito is the 2004 Shootstyle Dynamite Kid- the true carrier of the young shootstyle prodigies. Ueyama is like the first time you ever saw Rey Misterio Jr- you just say HOLY MOTHERFUCKING FUCK, WHAT THE FUCK AM I LOOKING AT AND WHY THIS SECTION OF THE WORLD BEEN WITHHELD FROM ME FOR SO LONG? Ueyama will make you hate Smackdown, Raw, Velocity and Jakked. You will understand why you look for the foreign wrestling because he is as fucking alien as a Martian landing in the ring and getting a triangle choke on Bradshaw. Ito is God-like because he takes the absolute weirdness of Ueyama and makes it digestible for the mere wrestling fan- adding context and psychology and what have you. They stand up for the beginning and feel each other out. Ueayama finally gets Ito in the corner and beats him to death with a thousand punches in 5 seconds for a point. Ito kicks to offense and into the guard. Ueyama grabs the wrist and turns a choke into a crossarmbreaker so quickly that there is no way to truly comprehend it. Ito spins it around and beats the fuck out of Ueyama with punches from the guard. They get into a vertical stance and does a spinning takedown into the mount and beats the fuck out of Ito again and sinks in the choke. Ito spins out and beats the living dogpiss out of Ueyama in his own mount. Ito gets LEGIT HEEEL HEAT by standing up and stomping Ueyama's skull as he lays prone and the yellow card is issued to DK 2004. They stand up and Ito strikes like a motherfucker and YOU NOTICE that Ueyama's KNEE IS TAPED! Ito kicks the living dogshit out of his knee and loses a point to recover with an 8 count. Ito is your true shootstyle motherfucker with the Belly-to-Belly and gets Ueyama on the ground starts SLUGGING UEYAMA IN THE MOTHERFUCKING KNEE and you and I- as professional wrestling fans- weep love's easy tears at the sheer manly beauty of professional wrestling. Then the KNEES to the knee and Ito goes for the Cross Armbreaker and Ueyama rolls to the vertical base and punches Ito in the kidneys and sinks in the CAB for the point. Ito crushes Ueyama's spindled knee as they are stood back up. Ito kicks it again and Ueyama collapses in a heap to lose another point. Ueyama uses the only thing he has left- his blinding speed to fight back. Ito grabs the ropes on the ensuing Triangle Choke and goes directly into the kneebar to get the point back. Ito goes straight for the knee when they are stood up and Ueyama crumbles to the ground and is down to his last point- as is Ito. Ito nails him in the head and gets a double leg takedown and Ito sinks in the kneebar and Ueyama is like Steamboat in the Figure Four. Ueyama grabs the rope and concedes defeat. Ueyama sold the knee like fucking Shinya Hashimoto in the 1996 G-1 Climax. Ito was fucking BEAUTIFUL in this match. Ueyama is your new shootstyle messiah. Shootstyle Match Of The Year. Bar none.

 

Katsuhisa Fujii vs Kazuki Okubo:

Kazuki is spent from the between-match threeway with the legendarily ravenous U-Style rats. Fuji uses this edge to suplex early and use his dickish UFO background to punch prettyboy in the kidneys while in the mount. Kazuki hits the ropes early. Fuji smacks him around and throws him on his head and it's two points down. Okubo does the desperation takedown and Fuji reverses it and ties loverboy up in a sheepshank and Okubo loses a third point. They stand up again Fuji kills him with kicks and he loses another point. Fuji kills him with rather fat German suplex for the knockout and loverboy is the victim of the notorious shootstyle squash- no points and the knockout. Poor fella.

 

Kyosuke Sasaki vs Hiroyuki Ito:

Sasaki still has the dead eyes of a broken man. Ito is GODLIKE. Sasaki is all fun in this match in a carney-weirdo-matwork sense and Ito brings out the best of all shootstyle artisans. Ito also kicks the living fuck out of all shootstyle artisans and gets the first knockdown by kicking Sasaki right across the teeth. WOW! Ito is your shootstyle DiBiase. Sasaki is back up and Ito beats his scrawny ass some more until Sasaki finally rolls into a kneebar and Ito loses a point. The psychology of this match is fucking BattlARTSIAN in it's scope: Ito is stronger and psychotically violent while Sasaki is smaller and faster and Ito has to kill him before Sasaki's speed catches up. Ito gets another knockdown and Sasaki responds with a kneebar. Ito gets a BEAUTIFUL yellow-card-warranting kick to the face during a break and comes up kicking the fuck out of Sasaki until Sasaki can roll into a "So-Carny-That-Volk-Han-Said-What-The-Fuck?" Bodyscissors keylock. Ito gets out and starts kicking but Sasaki rolls into a Cross Armbreaker attempt and THE MATCH HAS SHIFTED to Sasaki. Ito reverses into a kneebar and Ito feeds him the indian Deathlock-like leg thingy and Ito slowly works into CAB attempt with the thoroughly dickish punches to the face. Sasaki rolls into a pretzelization that leaves no ordinance, allowing Sasaki to roll into a rear naked choke for another point. Sasaki is complete fiesty face mode as he fights out of the suplex attempt and tries to bash Ito's teeth in. Ito's fires back with muy Tai kicks to the head that crush Sasaki's tiny skull and he loses another point. Sasaki then absorbs a flurry by Ito and rolls into a Cross Armbreaker for the FLASH WIN! Ito is fucking awesome. I wish he had won so I could see him carry another match. Sasaki is really good when you can get him in with someone who isn't coated with tattoos.

 

Katsuhisa Fujii vs Kyosuke Sasaki:

I can't really see this being better than the last match because Fuji is a 4th rate Ito. I would assume it will have the same story, except Fuji doesn't try to make anyone look good. Luckily, my initial fears never materialize because they decide to get all fericious and Sasaki gets the crowd all riled up as he forces Fuji into the ropes to get the first point. Fuji is vicious in his comeback and Sasaki is defiant in his not taking of an 8 count after getting nailed by a Fuji kicks. Fuji powers out of a keylock and powers into a kneebar that Sasaki counters and they roll around after a lapsed bit of matwork. Fuji gets a sloppy looking kneebar for a ropebreak and Fuji starts beating the fuck out of Sasaki and starts going for a keylock of his own. Sasaki anklelocks for another point and Fuji responds by killing him with kicks and punches. Fuji cranks in the front face lock and Sasaki powers him over and sinks in the armbreaker for a point. Fuji sells the damage and swarms on Sasaki and applies the HALFCRAB! YES! Sasaki rolls through and applies an Inside Texas Cloverleaf that Fuji punches out of and Fuji follows up with a CAB for another point. Fuji's height advantage makes his kicks look nastier when hitting the low altitude of Fuji's head and Fuji gets another CAB and another point. The crowd is pumped for Sasaki and he does a FABULOUS roll into his own half crab. Sasaki no sells a Released German and runs straight into a NASTY looking Crucifix choke thingy. This was fun. Tamura can carry Fuji like a motherfucker, so I look forward to it.

 

U-Style fucking RULES. Get all of this.