This was the finals of the inaugural Strong Climb tournament, with the winner becoming the first ever BJW Strong World Heavyweight Champion.
First, some backstory.
Everyone knows about Daisuke Sekimoto. By this point, he’s Japan’s reigning King of the Indies. It’s no official title, but it’s just the sort of thing you know. He’s been almost everywhere by now. He’s gone to America to plant the BJW flag in CHIKARA. He’s gone to DDT to win the KO-D Title. He’s taken the fight to All Japan, and become a hero. He’s credited as the founding father of the Strong BJ style that’s won hearts and minds, but strictly speaking, that’s not true. Because it ignores Yoshihito Sasaki. Yes, he’s no trueborn. Yes, he came from ZERO-1 originally. But it was his leaving and joining the team that really ignited all of this, giving Sekimoto someone around him actually on his level. Before Okabayashi was ready, before there was Strong BJ, Yoshihito Sasaki was Daisuke Sekimoto’s original partner, prior to being tossed aside for the trueborn.
They’ve done a beautiful thing with this. Daisuke Sekimoto is the standard bearer. The face of the company, division, and style. If anyone deserves to win this first tournament and be the first champion, it’s Daisuke Sekimoto. While Sekimoto has been off waving the company flag, Yoshihito Sasaki has made it his home and defended BJW from multiple would-be invaders. He’s come to fight when the company has needed him to back up Sekimoto and Okabayashi, and often paid for it and eaten falls to build up their tag matches. He’s been stuck in the shadow for years. None of that, really, is the fault of Daisuke Sekimoto. He’s uncommonly strong, thick, all of that. He casts a mighty large shadow, and one that tends to keep a great many people before and after this in the dark. But Yoshihito Sasaki is tired of standing in it. Trueborn or not, he embodies the ideals of the company and division as much as anyone ever has, and it’s always just a little bit easier to root for the aggrieved underdog, who’s had to work twice as hard for the things that Sekimoto has achieved very easily through his more prodigious physical gifts and the full might of the company behind him. Even in their semi finals, Sasaki had to get past arguably the best wrestler in the world while Sekimoto only had to beat Bad Bones. He wasn’t some slouch, but Sekimoto isn’t bothered at all by anything that happened in that match. In comparison, Sasaki limps out with his chest red, and his facial expression telling the whole story. He is hurt, he is sore, he is tired, but this is the best shot he’s ever going to have at stepping out of Sekimoto’s shadow and becoming his own person.
It’s the most important match in the career of either man to this point, for markedly different reasons. For Daisuke Sekimoto, winning this is his victory lap. A coronation. Proof of what the world is coming to know and evidence of his mastery of the style and division, something to hold up with his name on it to prove he is the king. For Yoshihito Sasaki, winning this is a long shot, and it is as much about the tournament and title as it is about defeating Daisuke Sekimoto on the biggest possible stage.
It’s one of the great booking victories in the history of Big Japan that they saved this match up until it meant as much as it possibly could, and then put it in a position to not only deliver upon all that story and build, but to do so in the finals of the big tournament and to do so for this brand new title, to immediately put both of the new creations on the map.
It’s a credit to Sekimoto and Sasaki that it not only lives up to all of this, but that it considerably outperforms the expectations put upon it.
I would not necessarily accuse the Strong BJ style of being one that encourages a great deal of fat on its matches. Typically, these things are efficient even if not every single one is a barnburner or whatever. This, however, is a special one. This is closer to fifteen minutes than twenty and there’s an incredible sense of urgency from the very start, every bit the perfect tournament final. They waste no time in not only getting to the stuff that matters, but in getting right to the story, as Sekimoto breaks out a big match dive within the first minute to establish himself. It’s a brilliant little piece of work, as he needs a large maneuver to immediately assert himself against Sasaki but it also doesn’t take him long at all to actually do it. It’s a perfect balancing act.
They maintain that perfect balance for the duration of the match. Sasaki is never someone Sekimoto can easily push around, but he’s not as strong as he is. There’s a reason this shadow fell over him in the first place. It’s as simple as the distinction between Sekimoto being sent reeling by the chops of Sasaki and Y-Sasaki being sent flying onto his back by the chops on Sekimoto. That’s as simple as it needs to be. It’s as simple as this ever needs to be. Sekimoto can handle him with ease, up until the point where he can’t, except that Sekimoto never really adjusts to this. Sekimoto’s casual attack is eventually his undoing, lacking the passion and need to win this specific match that Sasaki has. One of the most interesting things in wrestling to me is when a match matters so much more to one party than it does to the other, and that helps make this so much more interesting than it would be on moves and strikes alone.
Sasaki tries and never stops trying though, and his break comes when Sekimoto once again doesn’t bother treating him like real and honest challenge and more like a thing he knows he can get past. It’s the most important match of Sasaki’s life, and it’s another match for Daisuke Sekimoto. The upside of being a Terminator is that he’s impossible to kill and wins most matches. The downside is that a robotic sort of approach means he’ll never have the drive, need, and desperation that my son Yoshihito Sasaki has in this match. When Sasaki kicks out of the Deadlift German Suplex, Sekimoto fails to properly take it as a sign that this is serious, because he’s in that God-King sort of Ace mindset, looking up at everything from 40,000 feet in the sky. He keeps on with the usuals, and Yoshihito has an opening and he finds a way to stall the T-101 that Sekimoto’s become by now.
Sasaki can’t find a hydraulic press anywhere inside of Korakuen Hall. Instead, he shuts down the CPU by throwing his own head into it until it short circuits. I love him so much.
Sekimoto survives one Lariat, but he looks out of it when he gets up. Not in a tired or unconscious or desperate sort of way. His eyes are wide, and while he is present, he is so far removed. His brain is broken. He tries to swing at Sasaki, but he swings faster, harder, and wilder. It’s as desperate as anything else Sasaki did in this match, but there’s an incredibly charming confidence behind it now. He sees what’s happened and knows that the door is open for the first time all match. Yoshihito Sasaki pushes it through as soon as he can see a sliver of light. More grotesque headbutts to keep the CPU stalled out. A final and equally horrific Lariat puts Sekimoto down, giving Sasaki the underdog win of both the tournament, and of the title itself. Sasaki steps out of the shadow in the most impactful and inspiring way possible.
Yoshihito fucking Sasaki.
The easiest way to step out of a shadow is to destroy the thing casting it to begin with. Hit it until it crumbles. Solve your problems by hurling your brain at them.
There are a few Strong BJ matches that I might put on the same level as this match. I say that to qualify it when I say that this is one of the best Strong BJ matches of all time. I called Sekimoto/Okabayashi a month before spiritually perfect as far as this style goes, and this is a step above that. It has all of the great parts of a match like that, this surefooted and constantly moving intensity throughout, with zero fat on the the thing, but with an emotional punch too. Strong BJ is so often purely and delightfully mechanical, but when you add in a massive display of heart to it, it results in something this special. That’s the difference. All the delightfully streamlined violence but now with something a little more behind it too.
Daisuke Sekimoto can be a hard guy to full throatedly support sometimes. He whips ass, he’s great at putting these sorts of matches together, but he’s a hard guy to cheer for. He’s such a singularity. You want to watch him, but rarely do you want to see him win, especially in his own environment. This is his career singles match because it organically removes him from a position as the driving force behind the story, and instead turns him into the final obstacle to be overcome, by one of the division/style’s all time great working class heroes. Yoshihito Sasaki hasn’t gotten half of the large scale triumphs that Sekimoto has, and it makes it all the more fulfilling when his ultimate triumph comes in the biggest possible match, for the biggest possible prize, against the man he’s spent most of the last five years playing second fiddle to. As much fun as this as a pure physical spectacle and a display of tangible violence, the real value of this is as an affirmation of a career’s worth of hard work. Yoshihito Sasaki didn’t have a career full of glorious moments, but he did have this, and it’s triumphant enough that it feels like a completely fair trade off.
This isn’t the match you show someone to make them fall in love with the style/division/era. Not quite. It requires a context and a pre-existing appreciation to land absolutely perfectly. This is the match you show someone once they’re already in, to solidify everything.
One of the peaks of the style, and among the best matches of the decade.
****
HANDWERK 