This was a B Block match in the 2018 D-Oh Grand Prix tournament.
It would be easy to say that, as with every great Akito match, this is one just for the perverts, but that isn’t entirely true. Mike Bailey has another match where he, very frustratingly, has his left leg worked over. It’s been written about so frequently on this blog, the different positives and negatives of this match he likes to have, that I am honestly bored of talking about it. He sells well in the moments and occasionally after, but as a wrestler who runs and kicks a lot, I’ve never enjoyed these matches from Seedball half as much as the ones where he doesn’t do this sort of a thing.
The differences between many of those matches and this match though are that (a) it is only eleven or twelve minutes, & (b) Akito is much better at this match than a lot of the other people Bailey is doing it against.
Firstly, the time really helps them out here.
Bailey tends to have this sort of a match when he has fifteen, twenty, or God forbid, thirty minutes to work with, and it’s those times where it becomes real frustrating. Both because the segments where his leg gets pulverized tend to go on a little longer to fill up that space, but also because it means he has to do a lot more while still selling the leg, for the same reason. So, while it’s annoying when he fills like ten minutes up throwing kicks and then holding his leg, like he’s learned absolutely nothing every other time he’s done it, it is significantly less annoying when that sort of a thing is held back to three or four minutes of that. Carve these twelve minutes up pretty evenly for one-third grappling and back and forth, one-third for the Akito knee attack, and one-third comeback and finishing run, and it works. It’s still not my favorite sort of a match that Mike Bailey can have, but the twelve minute version is so much more palatable to me.
It’s also real beneficial that Akito is also one of the better attackers of a leg in recent wrestling history.
Whereas your garden variety Bailey opponent in a match like this may not be the best at working a leg, this is not only the sort of thing that Akito does all the time, but that he excels at doing. The attacks on the knee are not only so wildly different from what everyone else is doing — setting up bits for Bailey to counter so he can hit something grosser, unique holds, specific move set up only to drop Bailey on his kneecaps instead on the way down — but it’s also all real mean and nasty at the same time. It’s not the world’s most delicate balance exactly, but there’s still a real level of skill to it on display when Akito gets it right, and at least on his specific end, this is one of the better examples of Akito getting it right.
The match also benefits a lot from a real strong ending, as rather than some cliched story about Bailey fighting through and mustering up the strength, he actually adapts to what Akito’s doing. The last time Akito tries a complex transition into a hold, Bailey is able to pull him over when he first tries a Scorpion Deathlock, and with his legs crossed around Akito’s, the little freak cannot kick out. It’s a much better and more memorable ending to a match like this, not only making Bailey seem tougher and more likeable for fighting through it in a believable way rather than some phony show of heroism, but it makes Akito look real great too for forcing him into that, on top of the classical kind of thrill one gets at seeing a too-smart-for-his-own-good character like Akito foiled.
One of the best versions of one of my least favorite things.
***
HANDWERK 