Mutoha 02/16/25

Man, Hasegawa is a madman for making these Mutoha shows available so quickly. I pulled the trigger right after I went on a Crusher Takahashi & Kenichiro Arai marathon this week, so I'm really excited for their upcoming matches on this show! The show took place in the Ice Ribbon Dojo TODAY!

Crusher Takahashi vs. Hideya Iso

If you read my first blog post from today, I had two Crusher Takahashi singles matches on that list. Takahashi is a big man who throws great punches and is a really great seller. From Iso I've only seen one match so far (from the first Mumeijuku show).

The match starts with some chain wrestling and mat-based grappling. Crusher and Ito then reverse their opponents' locks in the first great moments of the match. Crusher Takahashi then concentrates on his opponent's legs. He throws some closed fist punches to Iso's head. Iso works from underneath and has to take a lot of punishment from Takahashi until he turns a sleeper hold into an armbar. Takahashi gets out by breaking the ropes. Iso tries for a rollup after missing the German suplex but only gets a 2. After some offence from Crusher, Iso hits a dropkick and enzuigiri and now tries to lock in the manjigatame. After finally locking it in, he gets the win by submission.

Kenichiro Arai, CHANGO & PSYCHO vs. GENTARO, Akira Jo & Taro Yamada

This is a Unicorn-style match. The rules are as follows:

• There are three matches with a combined 61-Minute Time Limit
• The first match is a singles match
• The second match is a tag match with the two remaining participants of each team
• If no team has won both previous matches, the final match will be a 3 on 3 tag match

After the initial scramble to get into the first match, we get GENTARO vs. Kenichiro Arai!!! I To this day I have not seen their 61 minute time limit match from 2023, but I have already bought it. I want to wait for a special occasion to watch this match. So I was hyped for a little sneak peek from them. Unfortunately, after a distraction from CHANGO, GENTARO gets low blown by PSYCHO before the match really starts and Arai gets the first win for his team with a roll-up. I am sad!

So the second match is PSYCHO & CHANGO vs. Akira Jo & Taro Yamada. I've already seen the Keita Yano / Taro Yamada match from 2015 this week, so I'm pretty hyped to get some more Yamada on my plate with this match. CHANGO & PSYCHO have been a long-running tag team, so it comes as no surprise that they work really well together. Both teams brawl a bit on the outside and the heel team tries everything to get a count out win. This backfires and after a dive by Yamada on both PSYCHO & CHANGO, they fail to get back in the ring. Jo & Yamada equalise the score!

The third match starts with both tag teams clearing each other out of the ring and now we get GENTARO vs. Kenichiro Arai! I am not sad anymore! Here ends part 1 of the video! See you next week!

No, just kidding. Part 2 starts with Arai & GENTARO grappling. Like I said, I haven't seen the 61 minute time limit draw, but I've seen enough wrestling from both men to know what I'm getting into. PSYCHO gets tagged in and he scambles around a bit with GENTARO, Yamada and later Akira Jo. He nicely counters Jos' hold into a submission of his own and tags in CHANGO. After that Jo & Arai face each other. Jo gets Arai into his corner and we are back to him & GENTARO. There are a lot of quick tag outs in both teams, so basically all the individual matches are covered in this part of the match. CHANGO & Yamada have a really cool short mat-based sequence in this part of the match. After a really nice sequence between PSYCHO & Jo where they trade chops and PSYCHO does a crazy looking top rope knee drop from the corner, they are back at it again between GENTARO & Arai. 

I think I know where this is going! The GENTARO/Arai match features prominently in this 6-man tag portion of the match. And yet, after all their meetings in Mutoha, there has never been a clear winner between the two in any of their matches. After Arai's roll-up in the first fall, this has to be the equaliser between these two. Arai escapes GENTARO's submission and then refuses to tap out to either of his teammates, instead giving them a slap in the face. Grappling continues between the two men, with Arai resorting to tactics such as pulling his opponent's hair. Arai tries to cover GENTARO after a diving attack but only gets a 2. Arai goes to the top rope again and still only gets a 2. Arai tries a third time but this time GENTARO counters, rolls Arai up and gets the 3-count for the win! GENTARO, Yamada & Jo win the match.

Overall the 3 vs. 3 was the best part of the match. I was really sad about the first fall, but in hindsight it makes sense to give both GENTARO & Arai a win over each other. Maybe we will see a rematch between them in the future! (I don't speak Japanese, so I would be very interested to hear what Arai said after the match)  

BTW Ref. Suzuki (YouTube | @GambleSurvivor) does wear a GoPro on his head. So I am fairly certain this match will be on his YouTube channel in the future!

Yasushi Sato vs. Shoji Ohno

This is for the Haoh title. Sato is the current champion, having won it last December in a barn burner against Kenichiro Arai. I am not really familiar with Shoji Ohno. He is a guy from EAGLE Pro, so I am quite interested to see where this goes. Before the match they slapped each other in the face before they started to bump fists. Especially Ohno's slap had so much power!

They start with some grappling. Sato is a master of his craft and he and Sato have a nice scramble on the mat early on. Ohno goes for his opponent's shoulder in the early part of the match, but then transitions to the ankle and leg. Sato does a Russian Legsweep into a pin and gets a 2. Ohno then goes for the Legsweep himself and hits it three times on Sato to fire him up. He hits another one in return and it looks great. They trade some hard hitting chops. Sato counters the Irish Whip and hits Ohno with a dropkick. Ohno then escapes the submission attempt on his leg by breaking the rope. Sato locks in the camel clutch but Ohno also escapes via the rope. Sato is getting really mean in this part of the match! 

Ohno gets a roll up pin for a two count and then hits a brainbuster to send Sato to the mat. Ohno is now in control and sends Sato off the apron to the floor with a bulldog variation. Ohno now looks for another submission, targeting Sato's neck and upper back. He gets him into a sleeper hold and transitions to a dragon sleeper and then a pin, but is unsuccessful. 

Ohno tries a lariat into the corner but Sato counters with a body shot. A slam from Sato follows and he is now on top again and hits a legsweep. After a submission attempt, where Ohno escapes over the rope, another legsweep follows, which gets a two count. Sato attacks Ohno in the corner, a sick headbutt follows, but Ohno counters a knee attempt and hits Sato with a big slap to the face. Still only 2 for the pinfall! A Michinoku Driver follows but still only gets a 2! 

Ohno now concentrates on Sato's arm and shoulder and tries for a submission, but Sato escapes with a rope break. Ohno looks to finish the match with another Michinoku Driver, but Sato rolls him up for the win! All in all, a very entertaining match that continues the high in-ring standard of Mutoha's main events!

The End

To conclude, we have had three very entertaining matches. Each had a different style, so there is probably a match for everyone out there. Overall I would definitely recommend the unicorn style match the most, both the tag and the 6 man tag were really good. I hope, that Mutoha does not go to hiatus for a long time and their chairman Yoshino gets well soon!   

I wrote about 5 hours ago that I did not really know when the next post would be on this blog. So 5 hours later, here it is. All thanks to Hasegawa-san and his damn fast video editing skills! Have a nice week! :D