Posted June 3, 20232 yr comment_6005282 Ogasawara is a goofy guy with a even more goofy Karate gimmick. He's basically the striker equivalent of Tamon Honda: started wrestling late into life and wasn't a particularly big achiever for most of that career anyway, mostly being a undercard/gimmick guy. On the indies he's a different beast though, he hits Keita hard as anything and doesn't let up, with this striking allowing him to consistently break though holds and submission attempts out of stiffness alone. Keita incorporates that into the match well as his moments of frustration, trying to lash out and throw his own (obviously inferior) shots gets him in hot water when it really shouldn't, but because he's trying to trade instead of doing the reasonable thing (working the mat) he's just not doing well at all here. Ogasawara's kicks are incredibly fun as he just does these super silly spinning kicks that look impractical, yet always land flush and look solid somehow. This progresses to Keita getting his big shot with a series of cool leg submissions alongside Ogasawara just trying to beat the shit out of the guy with chops to the leg, devolving into the two throwing full on closed-fist punches while stuck in a toe-hold with big cavemen slugfests. Keita eats more shots, but gets in a cool dropkick out of nowhere to try to survive and get some sort of range. Keita regardless gets blasted with nasty Hashimoto-lite chops, and Ogasa's insanely stiff roundhouse for the finish was tremendously violent. All in all, a really enjoyable short burst of action from the two, really got into this given it was sub-10 and barely let up from the get-go. Another super robust Keita match, not that surprising. Generally his matches are more technical, but this more strike-focused approach was a good change of pace, went quicker and more sturdy.
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