Love Is A BattlART

Daisuke Ikeda/Takeshi Ono VS Yuki Ishikawa/Alexander Otsuka - BattlARTS 10/30/1996

JJZ: So, if someone asked me what Battle Arts are, I would just show them this match. Totally blurring the lines between real and "fake." This looked like all four guys were shooting on each other for twenty two minutes. It was really well executed violence. I'm totally expecting you to say you've shown this to me before, but if you haven't, it gives me hope to bring joy to your eyes. I think I might show it to our real life friends that enjoy wrestling also. The crowd was eating everything up with a spoon and I was feeling every kick, slap and suplex through my TV screen. I'm hoping me and you go down a long rabbit hole of the fine Arts of Battle!

CJD: John I had the pleasure of sitting down and watching this with you and said IRL friends and one of the first things I said was, what was that,like 13 minutes?  The fact it's almost twice that is amazing because this match just flies by. When I saw the names I thought I'd seen this before but I actually hadn't! And man oh man am I grateful to have watched it now. One of the greatest tags in the history of BattlArts which is really saying something. I don't think any two wrestlers enjoyed kicking the shit out of each other more than Ishikawa and Ikeda. If you had to introduce someone to Otsuka this is such a great summary of everything that makes him awesome. And maybe the best Ono match I've ever seen?? He's such a tremendous dickhead all match long. This match rules!!!