HARASHIMA/Soma Takao vs. Kazusada Higuchi/MAO, DDT Dramatic Nerima The Fighter (2/3/2018)

With the HARASHIMA and Marufuji superteam being scheduled to go against Kazusada Higuchi again at March’s big JUDGMENT show, alongside his upgrade in partner from Irie to Daisuke Sekimoto, we get a string of great little build up tags and a singles between HARASHIMA and Higuchi over the next month and a half.

It’s all quite simple, but when you get a big old chuck of the best match up in the company and really possibly the entire country for a month and a half, it’s real hard to complain about it.

There’s a lot here, on paper, that might suggest this match as one of the lesser ones of that entire bunch. DDT only gives them a hair under twelve minutes in the middle of the card, they don’t get to really stretch their limbs out in the match as a result, and the partners are not the best that either man could ask for.

Doesn’t matter.

Soma Takao is on something close to his best behavior (not being a total ineffectual loser, at least living up to the responsibility of being a warm body in the ring, which is often a task that seems far beyond his capabilities), and at this point, MAO is still a pretty interesting young wrestler. This match does not ask a whole lot of them, it’s hard to really complement them too heavily, but they easily could have tanked the thing and simply did not. Really though, it is about our two heroes, and as always, it is lovely to see them unload upon each other. They save a whole lot for the big one coming up, but both HARASHIMA and Higuchi are among the best in the world at getting a lot of a little, and whether that means more basic offense or a match without all the time in the world, it’s on clear display here.

HARASHIMA beats MAO with the Somato, and even if he doesn’t beat Higuchi with it himself, the result is still the same, with Gooch being unable to do a single thing but watch HARASHIMA win again.

Another DDT house show gem.

***

Mike Bailey vs. Soma Takao, DDT D-Oh Grand Prix 2018 in Osaka 2Days (1/8/2018)

This was a B Block match in the 2018 D-Oh Grand Prix tournament.

Whereas the D-Oh GP Mike Bailey matches so far have been variations or straight-up reruns of his usual hits (Little Mike Bailey vs. Big Guy, Eye-Rolling Knee Work Match), what we have here is something far more novel, far more interesting, and yes, despite the name on the other side of the match from him, somehow also far better than the previous two matches.

Mike Bailey is a genuine bully, and it is a revelation. Despite all of the fun fireworks shows and dream matches he’s had in DDT, the UK, and Canada in the time since his U.S. ban in early 2016, it’s the best performance he’s had in years at this point, probably since that career year of 2015. He does everything that he’s always done that’s made him such a joy to watch, and not only cuts out the sort of stuff that’s held him back on and off for a few years, but does it all in entirely new way.

In the interest of total and complete fairness, this is not just a one man show.

Shockingly, Soma Takao brings it.

Or, at least as much as he is physically capable of. He’s got smaller arms, there’s only so much that he can bring, you know? His arms are full here, if nothing else. He does not light the world on fire exactly, but given his inability to even create a spark for most of his career, even a nice little campfire is impressive. It’s more than he’s been able to conjure up in over three years, ever since the miracle KO-D Title match against HARASHIMA in November 2014. He throws a lot of elbows, and something like sixty to seventy-five percent of them are genuine heaters. He’s got a few real nasty ones that he throws to the body that leave a real impression. There’s some weaker offense too, and he is still not an especially likeable wrestler, but there is a real effort from Soma Takao, and he does not let the match or his opponent down like usual.

He could probably have been anyone though, and with a Mike Bailey performance as great as this, the match would have been just as good, if not better.

In this match, Mike Bailey is not an underdog. He is not even wrestling an equal in some stylistic battle, like you might get on any non-U.S. indie in the world at this point.

Instead, Mike Bailey is a rotten little prick.

Young Karate is out of this world great in this match, delivering the sort of absolute shitheel performance that I genuinely had no idea he had in him before this match. He’s aggressive and incredibly mean, but also such a preening little showoff. Everything he does is either incredibly petty and spiteful, or athletically incredible, which is always followed up by him smiling at himself or taking a bow. He holds things for longer than usual to show off, he kicks a little sharper and harder than usual, and goes out of his way to taunt little Soma Takao. It doesn’t just stand because it’s so unique from Bailey, but on top of that, because it is simply so good. As great as he’s been in the past as an underdog, he’s just as great here as in any of his better and/or more acclaimed matches. It’s not only a performance that whips a ton of ass, but a genuine eye-opener.

The reason I’m often so hard on Mike Bailey is because of this match, not just because he showed the ability to do something different and more sensible, but because he was better here against an otherwise complete dud than he’s been in at least a hundred matches against far better wrestlers. It’s the sort of thing he ought to be capable of all the time, but often doesn’t reach, for any number of reasons. It’s the sort of performance that raises someone’s ceiling in my mind, and that makes every lesser effort stand out that much more.

Soma wins with a cradle, but the result of this is the least important thing about it.

If not the absolute best match or performance of Mike Bailey’s career, given the situation, card placement, and opposition, it may be the single most impressive performance of Mike Bailey’s career.

The sleeper of the tournament.

***1/5

Shuten Doji (KUDO/Yukio Sakaguchi/Masa Takanashi) vs. Team Dream Futures aka TEAM DRIFT (Shigehiro Irie/Keisuke Ishii/Soma Takao), DDT Osaka 25 Ward Tour ~ Minato (3/1/2015)

This was for Shuten Doji’s KO-D Six Man Tag Team Titles.

It could use five to ten less minutes. It really didn’t need to be a two control segment match, especially when one of them was on big ass Shigehiro Irie for some reason. The finishing run had far too much Soma Takao (read: any) in between all of the good bits.

However, purely and simply, this whipped ass.

Irie and Ishii and KUDO and Yukio all beat the god damned shit out of each other. Soma Takao is a dud and a loser and brought down a not insignificant stretch of the finishing run to this match, but he was reliable enough with the elbows for the rest of the match, as he tends to be when dudes are rocking him with good elbows first. Masa Takanashi sticks out like a sore thumb in a match based around hitting really hard, but they figured him really well into the end of the match, so it worked out in the end. The Irie vs. Sakaguchi and Ishii vs. KUDO exchanges in the middle and final third of this were especially great.

Everyone kills each other, and it flows real well in the final third. Irie is left alone, with his partners being real easy to cut off. Soma especially is a fraud, so while he’s way easier to dispatch than Keisuke Ishii is, it means they have more time to deal with Ishii and Irie each. Luckily, Irie is big and strong enough that he can turn it around, and Takanashi gets stuck in there with Team Drift, only wrestling for pink slips. He does what he always does, and tries to confuse people and outmaneuver everyone he can. It works great in singles matches, but there’s too many of them to dodge forever.

Takanashi embarrasses Soma with ease, ducks under Ishii’s wheel kick, but Irie removes head from body with the Beast Bomber. Shig totally bowls him over on it, with nobody else around, and Team Drift takes it home in a beauty.

Not complex and certainly not perfect, but in the end, it was just mean and nasty and cool as hell. Sometimes that’s all it needs to be.

A medium high recommendation for anyone with DDT Universe access.

***

HARASHIMA vs. Soma Takao, DDT God Bless DDT 2014 (11/30/2014)

This was for HARASHIMA’s KO-D Openweight Title.

Soma Takao is not a great wrestler. Most of the time, he’s not really even good. He CAN throw a good enough elbow, but most of the time, he doesn’t. Even when great wrestler push him to throw a little heavier, he often doesn’t. He seems incapable most of the time of moving with any sense of urgency, operates with an inability to make you believe for half a second that this is any sort of struggle or contest, and performs with little to no impact or snap. At the right moment, I might be willing to call him one of the worst wrestlers in the world. As I write this in 2021, it’s been years since he had a great match, probably even a good one.

Suffice to say, the fact that this is a great match is a minor miracle performed by HARASHIMA.

It’s not perfect. I don’t love it as much as some. I don’t really love it at all. Soma still has to be pushed into throwing strikes like an adult. He still struggles to move with a lot of urgency, and his control work is hit or miss. However, he can be pushed into these things at this point and when HARASHIMA realizes it, he spends the match mostly successfully pressuring Takao into better behavior. With the exception of other singles matches against some of DDT’s heavier hitters, I’d struggle to name a better Soma Takao match.

Primarily, that has to do with HARASHIMA. It’s hardly his greatest performance, but it’s one of his meaner ones in recent memory. There’s a sort of gleefulness to his outing here, and it’s all over the match. The early matwork is typical for HARASHIMA, save for this moment where he sprawls on top of Soma as he tries to get up and just stay still there, like he’s daring Soma to do anything and to show a single thing to him. In moments when he maneuvers into a top mount, he always crosses his right arm over the throat. It’s a smart little touch, like always, of HARASHIMA to block anything, but he also literally spends a chunk of the early sections with his hand on Takao’s throat, and him unable to respond. The witless neophyte can do almost nothing until he takes big risks to hurt HARASHIMA’s back. He’s incapable of holding and advantage, despite being pushed to be a little more vicious than usual in his attack. When HARASHIMA is able to take over, there’s occasionally this joyous smile when he gets to lay in a particularly nasty shot or cut off, of which there are many.

In a lot of ways, it’s HARASHIMA’s version of the Destruction 2011 match between Tanahashi and Naito. The long term champion and Ace is faced with a would-be successor who understands little to nothing about WHY the man on top of the mountain is where he is. By the end, it’s clear that he understands nothing and is a pale imitation of the real thing. It’s a wonderful sort of match, and while HARASHIMA is a lot too nice to script the match around making it clear in the way Tanahashi does, it works for all the same reasons. Your eyes tell you that this guy is a loser, and the match rewards you by teasing a false elevation that wrestling promotions often force, only to reassert the way things ought to be. Luckily, unlike New Japan, DDT won’t make HARASHIMA put this blank space where a human should be over for years and years, until at least he’s no longer a valid successor.

The end comes wonderfully. Soma unloads with the best flurry of his life, opens HARASHIMA up, but just can’t close. The story of the entire match takes place in one thirty second span, where Soma gets the champion up for the Gin & Tonic, but HARASHIMA fights it. Takao can get one leg but not the other, and instead of using science or gutting it out, he simply settles for the one leg version, and it’s not enough. Soma lacks the skill or the heart and settles for something lesser, and it’s never going to be enough to get to the top. HARASHIMA finds openings from there, tees off, and retains the title with a real mean looking and sounding Somato. Not the world ender that the one against Isami Kodaka recently was, but impactful all the same, with a hand on Takao’s face in the cover to really drive it all home.

Given the other output of Soma Takao, this is the point at which a reasonable mind would start to seriously consider HARASHIMA as a top ten talent in the entire world.

***1/4

HARASHIMA/KUDO/Yasu Urano vs. Shigehiro Irie/Keisuke Ishii/Soma Takao, DDT WHO’S GONNA TOP? (9/30/2012)

Not super great, but real terrific midcard six man. The focus is primarily on the advancement of our three young would-be heroes, and they do fine enough.

Well.

Shigehiro Irie and Keisuke Ishii do fine enough!

Soma Takao is a lost cause and eight years (and counting) later, he still hasn’t developed into much. But the other two are great! Irie has one incredibly gross headbutt here, made all the more impressive by this match absolutely not requiring that from him AT ALL. He takes a backseat because they’ve already given him big matches for his experience level by now, but he’s as good as here as he was in those matches. Ishii is good at pretty much everything. He’s asked to carry the finishing run for his team, and he absolutely comes through.

Our boys are phenomenal as always. HARASHIMA, while not having a lot of major opportunities in 2012 to show what he’s capable of, still very much looks like one of the very best professional wrestlers in the entire world. KUDO doesn’t get to do quite so much, but he has one extended run with Irie that whips a world of ass. Urano is given the finishing run and what he can’t do physically to match up with two-thirds of this match, he makes up for in RAW CHARM. Ishii is already better than him, but lacks the raw GRIT and HEART and SHITTY GEAR that Urano does AND THE DIRTBAG ICON BLOCKS THE JAY DRILLER INTO THE JACKKNIFE PIN AND HE GETS THE WIN

YEAH

FUCK THE YOUNG

DON’T CHANGE YOUR LIFE ONE BIT

LIVE FOREVER

gentleman’s three