This was for Ishikawa’s BJW Deathmatch Heavyweight Title, and it was a BLOODRAYNE DEATH MATCH. That doesn’t really mean anything, but there are a few boards with cut-in-half soda cans on them, so that’s a decent bit.
More importantly, it’s finally a big Shuji Ishikawa match that I actually really love!
The Shuji Ishikawa Deathmatch Champ run doesn’t just work because of the easy invader story or the big guy story. These things are very helpful, of course, and provide easy context from which to begin, but it works because like another great big guy reign — or more recently the spring Shield vs. Bryan stuff — it’s all about trying to solve this puzzle. You need a guy who can trade shots with Ishikawa and who isn’t JUST a deathmatch guy. But he maybe needs some size too. He also needs to be wild enough and have a deep enough reserve to hang in the end, because the Big Dog’s become acclimated to all the death match trappings at this point.
Masashi Takeda has all of these features. Of course, so did Yuko Miyamoto and Ryuji Ito and neither of them could get the job done.
However, Takeda has one thing they do not.
Masashi Takeda is insane.
Shuji is able to maneuver around with his size and clubber early on, but Takeda doesn’t really have the fear of him or respect for the size and power that every other opponent so far has had. He goes right after him with tube spots, he can trade elbows with Shuji and even occasionally outdo him, and he does what nobody else has really done so far, which is outmaneuver Ishikawa and manage some nutty deathmatch spots that the champion doesn’t seem to have an answer for. He turns around something like 75% of the big stuff Ishikawa tries, and doesn’t seem to feel pain in the way the others have. Shuji Ishikawa is used to dealing with rational men, and this is not a rational man. He gets fired up and cuts open his arm and chest with a broken light tube because he is too excited not to. He throws every single piece of glass he can find at the big guy.
It’s the sort of manic behavior that Takeda’s become known for and that always sort of annoys me when he breaks it out early on in a match to rile the crowd up and start hot. It always feels like a cheap shortcut that never feels understandable. Here though, given both the context of this reign and of the match to this point, He keeps throwing himself and throwing Ishikawa through things and running headfirst into everything, and for a good chunk of time in the back half, Ishikawa finally looks cooked. He’s fucking COWERING at a point here. Absolutely magical stuff.
Someone finally solved the puzzle.
BUT THEN SURPRISE THERE’S BEEN ANOTHER GLASS BOARD SET UP OUTSIDE THIS ENTIRE TIME
AND TAKEDA SUDDENLY GETS PUT THROUGH IT WITH AN AWESOME STYLE CRUCIFIX RELEASE FROM INSIDE THE RING OVER THE TOP????
If the shot was better, you bet there would be a gif. Instead, have the horrifying visual of what’s left over.
Takeda does not die though, despite leaving the normally figurative pound of flesh on the ground beneath them.
It could be argued that this last section goes on a little long. A kick out or two too many. I can see the point. At the same time, both men are dripping blood from their backs, arms, and faces. There’s a desperation to it that still makes it all work. Takeda completes his career performance by making even this sort of thing work too. I’m never the sort of guy to offer up a “it worked for the crowd SO” sort of justification, but if there was ever a setting to have a big deathmatch get a little kick out heavy in, it’s here and now, because they are WITH Takeda. He’s been around in BJW since the incredible 2009 tag series, it’s not like he came out of nowhere, but it feels like a guy taking The Leap in front of everyone’s eyes. A special performance in a special match.
The exact setting in which excess is completely justified, and often doesn’t feel much like excess at all.
After far too many gross skull on skull headbutts, the Big Dog goes to the cross-arm Splash Mountain onto a mountain of broken glass and finally puts the mad dog away.
If not for Gage/Tremont I and/or II, I would be out on a limb right not calling it the singular best death match of the decade. It still might be in the end. It’s certainly the best Japanese deathmatch of the decade, a singularly sort of special encounter. Matches like this are the reason I felt like the only one (or one of the only ones) in 2018 not falling all over themselves to pour accolades on Masashi Takeda, because he’d already proven that he could have a crazier, more emotional, more interesting, and outright better match than all of those here a half decade prior.
This is on Ditch. This is on IWTV on the Shuji Ishikawa BJW Champ compilation, I believe. This is not a hard match to come into contact with. Watch it, because it’s gonna show up on a list, and maybe not even just the 2013 one.
HANDWERK 