Talk about it here.

A total out of nowhere awesome match. I have very little interest in current Joshi, I haven't seen Carlos Amano in years and I don't think I had ever seen Kana, but they were just killing it in this match. Their early grappling was very slick, with some really nasty ankle locks and armbar transitions. Very good stuff, as intricate and interesting as that kind of shoot mat work gets. Ishikawa and Fujiwara click together like puzzle pieces. There is a great moment where Fujiwara tags in and slaps Ishikawa in the mouth, and when Ishikawa tries to respond Fujiwara grabs his arm and wrenches in the namesake armbar. After watching and reviewing this many Fujiwara matches it is great that he still breaks out new neat shit. As good as everyone else is, this was the Ishikawa show. Every once in a while Ishikawa shows up on DVD or youtube and reminds you he is the best wrestler in the world. Starting out he is such a nasty fucker, smacking around Kana like Billy Campbell in Enough. However Kana fires back and his selling is so good that by the end we have a full on epic Ishikawa v. Ikeda finish with the role of Daisuke Ikeda played by a 97 pound girl. Kana is throwing bombs and Ishikawa is desperately fighting back. Excellent match as good as the best stuff from 2011.

For a long time I wondered why I underrated Meiko/Kana 2011 so much when I first watched it. Revisiting this match, I think the answer might have been that I was just spoiled by living in a time when matches of this caliber would pop up seemingly out of where. This is a phenomenal showcase from all four with no weak points. The opening matwork between Kana and Amano is some amazing stuff reminiscent of RINGS, with them ending up with their legs tangled in a way that would look at home in a Volk Han match. The exchange between Ishikawa and Fujiwara makes for a nice contrast with them opting for a more gritty and less flashy approach reminiscent of 50's stuff. The intergender pairings that follow throughout the rest of the match both deliver big on what you'd want out of them. Fujiwara turns back the clock to give an awesome prickish performance showing no respect to anybody in the match. He plays some great mind games with Amano, though it's unfortunate the camera missed the payoff for it when they went out of the ring at the end. Ishikawa works some really nice big vs. little mat exchanges with Kana throughout the match and sells well. They save the big beatdown for the end, and it's great. Ishikawa eats so many nasty kicks from Kana but he just keeps coming back in a way that makes you wonder if he's getting some masochistic pleasure out of it.

On a side note, I really like how this match uses the intergender dynamic. Ishikawa and Fujiwara both come across as highly skilled mat workers who have a perverted old man side lurking just beneath the surface, and that leads to them sometimes not taking the match as seriously as they should. Still, they're both far larger and stronger than the girls, so the girls end up having to dig deep to get whatever advantage they can get. As a result, it really feels satisfying whenever they do gain control of the match from the guys, and I think that's the key to making a great intergender dynamic.