Hey all you PIFamaniacs, if you've been reading for a few years you'll notice we're not going to do our annual Head Droppies. Just not feeling it this year. Maybe they'll be back next April? We'll see! In the meantime, we decided to look back at the last year of posts with a simple Top 5 PIF Picks from both myself and JJZ for Tuesdays and Fridays. So here are our Top Five FFFFavorites from March 2021-March 2022! We'll check in on Tuesday with our MDTSOCWWKD Top 5.
JJZ: Let's talk shoot fighting! This was a grappling match to the fullest! Great transitions and unexpected switches. And they maximized the rope breaks in this one! I was so I'm the mood for a match like this. The matches Ishikawa had with Jacobs were great but this really gets into the shit I'm talking about with this style of wrestling. I don't recall seeing Greco before because my Battlearts viewing is sadly so limited but I'm gonna keep him on my radar for damn sure. So this is the fourth Ishikawa match we've shared now and it's crazy to think we've covered three different decades. We really are showcasing a great snapshot into his long career.
CJD: You are so in my wheelhouse with this one I'm going to have to start calling you Johnny Cartwheelhouse!! Carl Greco aka Carl Malenko is the adopted brother of Dean and Joe and is one of the unsung pioneers of shoot style. He has a rivalry with Ishikawa going back to the early 90s. One of our favorite Instagram accounts master_of_senton coincidentally just made a post highlighting another match of his days after you sent me this. He made the point that Greco was the first person to ever go the distance against a young Wanderlei Silva, and while his MMA record won't turn any heads, that's certainly proof that he's a legitimate bad ass. I watched this match back around when it happened but haven't seen it since, and it plays even better now than I remembered. This did happen in an absolute resurgence of BattlARTS where they were having banger after banger so it got lost in the shuffle a bit for me. Looking back now, this is one of the finest examples of grappling I've ever seen. Seriously elite level shit. One review I read mentioned no strikes are thrown and while I didn't notice that it does sound right. I have to imagine I've seen the big twist before the finishing stretch in another match previously but I can't remember for certain and it gave me literal goosebumps. These are two masters of their craft and like you said we highlighted what an all-time great Yuki Ishikawa is over the course of four very different matches that don't even scratch the surface of his greatest hits. Although this match certainly deserves to be in the conversation.
CJD: Going from a very substantial match last week to a very junk food match this week. But I will say, we've discussed before if the talent wasn't on this level in the mid 2000s for women compared to now, or if they just didn't have the right platform. Well I think it's more the latter than the former but the talent in this match for a random 4 way is pretty damn impressive. Especially considering none of these four ladies are really big names even now. We've seen a lot of random 4 ways and for me this one was particularly creative and made great use of its time. And Solo just has that It Factor that you can't quite put your finger on, especially coming from the kind of Candy Crush gimmick she started with to where she is now. The sum is much greater than the individual parts and I'm really glad we've gotten more familiar with her work over the span of her two FFF Championships. Curious where you'll go next with all these options!
JJZ: Junk food match to the fullest. They even had some pizza. I'm familiar with each woman in this match so picking who to play forward will depend on who impresses me the most in the 4 corner classic my North Carolina friend! This was a fun one. Reminded me of early 2000 Ring Of Honor four corner survivals. I feel like all the ladies came across fantasic and everyone's timing was good. Nice highspots with a simple but effective finish! Nice shit baby boy.
JJZ: I went into this more curious than excited. Especially with a match taking place during a heated feud. I think both wrestlers played their roles excellently. Darling's face work really pulled the crowd on her side. She came across very angry but you could sympathize with her because she was still trying to mend the relationship with Travis. Huckabee on the other hand came across so scumbaggy. So callous and unredeemable. The workrate in this one was top notch. Loved the limb work and they even had a few spots that really made me wince. The story was fantastic and the wrestling was above what I expected. Good shit from these two.
CJD: Beautiful write up on this one. I loved how everything in this match was done with such purpose. I wonder what percent of your average wrestler's career is matches like this with such layered story and emotion built into it? And how much more difficult it is to deliver a match like this than a random undercard first time encounter. Or maybe the added drama makes it easier than starting cold? This is the stuff that fascinates me about being a pro wrestler, especially on the indies. You're the master of your own destiny and there are a million wildly different scenarios and jobs you'll have to do along the way. For Huckabee for example going all the way from a ref to a partner betrayed feud blowoff like this. And when the stars align like this it all comes together and on this show with this opportunity these two knocked it out of the park. Super memorable and exciting match that both should look back at with pride.
CJD: So I used to avoid going straight back to a rematch because it's technically against our rules with our imaginary titles and what can and can't be played forward. And 4 years in I think it's become pretty obvious we just do whatever we want at this point. You were going to watch this match anyway. I wanted to watch this match. I didn't want to watch Kane doing Kane things. But I did want to watch Yuki Ishikawa doing Yuki Ishikawa things. So let's do this! Looking into it a bit more I think this is the match that most people have seen when they reference these two wrestling. And this is also pretty darn good. But I wouldn't have liked it anywhere near as much without the previous match. Ishikawa clearly comes back in with a strategy and is making a statement early with his slick transitions and attempts to cut the big man down. They play up Kane's lack of experience with the style a little more and make his moments of skill seem a bit more shocking. Basically everything is done with more purpose in this match and as a result it's a little more engaging but also a little less organic. I like the first match better but I like Ishikawa's performance in this one more. By the end I'm just amazed at what great chemistry these two had! And begrudgingly glad you got me to sit down to two Kane matches!
JJZ: While watching this one I was thinking that big Kane fans would be watching this and saying "God, this is awful." While I'm thinking "God, Kane is awful... but this is pretty good!!" I love that you played this back. So entertaining. I was legit hooked on everything they did. I'm telling you man lower expectations really set this up and between both matches they knocked it out of the park. I do wish Glenn used his strength advantage more because when he did it was impressive. I'll agree that the first match made this one more enjoyable. Loved the finish. So happy I can say that I saw multiple good Kane matches!
CJD: We've featured a lot of shorter matches on FFFridays so I try to avoid anything this abrupt but man this had too much going for it to skip over. Travis Huckabee was someone I was making sure I was watching back when I had a Chikaratopia subscription and I'd say is one of the more underrated guys (or girls) going today. Masha looks great returning from an extended tour of Japan. Limitless has an awesome little studio presentation of this very recent match and the sum of the parts of this 7 or 8 minutes is so much more than you'd expect from the runtime and scrolling past a thumbnail.
JJZ: It's hard to get a good feel for a wrestler during a 7 minute match but you know me! I super appreciate wrestlers that can produce a quailty short match. We did get good idea of what Masha Slamovich is these past 2 weeks. We saw her work heel and babyface and boy was she able to control the crowd. Nice match baby cakes!
JJZ: So you sure know why I picked this one. Holy fuck. Never knew Kane did shoot style wrestling before. Let me tell you, I was so entertained by this it isn't even funny. Everything Glenn did I popped for. IMO he did better fucking good. And you what?? They had a rematch two weeks later! I'm going to watch that also! CJD you are the one who really introduced me to this form of professional wreslting and you know how much I love it. I went into this not expecting much and was pleasantly surprised. It's not Takeda vs Maeda but it pretty goddamn good. And for Kane, that's saying a lot! Dude knows more than I thought he would. I wonder if Bryan Danielson knows he worked these matches?
CJD: It's funny you would say I introduced you to shootstyle because back at that time I really only dug BattlArts and more pro wrestling based shoot stuff. I loved Ishikawa but Otsuka was my guy for example. And I would say your passion for digging into UWF is what convinced me to finally open the door to really straight up simulating shoot style, which I'd always kind of wrote off as trying to portray itself as being above wrestling. Needless to say I was being close minded and in the end we both win because we both had our horizons broadened.
I knew these two wrestled but I never got around to checking out what sort of freakshow it was and Holy Shit! This was so much better than I expected. Pretty better fucking good!! The best Kane singles match I've seen by such a wide margin. How is he legitimately intimidating here and so toothless as The Devil's Favorite Demon or whatever the hell they call him?? This built logically, a battle of technique VS size and power, although like you said Kane had a surprising amount of technique. There was a real tension and progression to the way it played out and I even loved Fujiwara's little role as trainer after the match. This was a treat and man I didn't think I'd be saying that about a Kane match any time soon.
JJZ: Well, after going through the effort of watching and sending you the wrong match I wanted to just watch something fun instead. So when you see these ladies at the beach I thought what's more fun than that?!?! This was an interesting one to say the least. I don't even know what Bortchsed (probably spelled that wrong) is. The surroundings were the story of this one. At first I was thinking that wrestling in sand while being wet would be totally annoying but I remembered backyard wrestling in mud and snow and it wasn't during but it was after that sucked. In the moment it was actually quite fun so I hope Allie and Masha enjoyed the uniqueness of what they were doing. What I can say about the match itself was that it was pretty tight and I really liked the finish. I like that they didn't over do it with spots. They didn't need to. The keep it simple stupid method sold this match perfectly.
CJD: This match definitely had to suck after the fact but in the moment it looked like a blast. At least rolling around in the ocean dropping bombs back and forth did. I've watched the sickest deathmatches imaginable but there were still moments of this that had me cringing because of cold water or oily outdoor borscht tubs. Which is fun because they built these spots with purpose to make the audience care and that's good pro wrestling even if you're building to something this silly. I've heard a lot about Masha but this is the first match I've seen of her's and it's a hell of an introduction. I did think Allie stole the show though and she just wins me over more and more with each match I see from her. You hit me with this type of match at just the right time.
CJD: So you know this match was a journey for me to arrive at in more ways than one. I think part of the problem was that the Dunne match set the bar so high that every WALTER singles match I watched felt like a big step down. And I will say that WALTER recycled a lot of similar spots for a while there, although I think he's been less guilty of that in recent years. But I wasn't trying to play forward back to back WWE matches so I ended up here with something completely different and really enjoyable. This match is much more focused on building to the Thatcher/Ishikawa match the next night (which is fantastic and I have pegged to play for you in person someday) but WALTER and Irie are excellent second fiddles to keep things fresh and rotate pairings. And Ringkampf are an excellent somewhat underrated tag team for what big presences these two have as singles wrestlers. At its core this is just fundamental, physical, straight-forward grappling and striking. But done so well and between two teams I never imagined would meet up and in such a unique and intimate setting. Enjoy baby, I couldn't believe how many twists and turns it took me to get here.
JJZ: Was that Saves the Day in the beginning of this video? First off love this venue. Plop a ring down in the middle of a warehouse and stuff in the fans. Bam! You got me. Man. This was great baby, I was so happy to see a match were Walter wasn't just dominating most of the time. He never plays second fiddle normally. And of course he did an excellent job of it. Thatcher and Ishikawa really had some heat in this one. Super stiff and tight. But most importantly I loved that there was no wasted moves or movement. Everything was earned and used to gain or maintain advantage. Just felt like a real fight start to finish. Can't wait for my hunting after this one.
CJD: I watched an older match between these two which had a lot of potential, so I was excited for this rematch. I thought it built on the positives of their chemistry nicely. These two have a fun babyface dynamic that allows for a bit more of a hold for hold back and forth than you see in a lot of women's matches on the indies. It works really well here and when they have the opportunity for a big moment they usually deliver. Not the smoothest match we've ever played forward but I loved the repeated attempts for the Shazz-mission and the general pace. I'm sure these two have had lots of matches against each other and it makes sense why, they're great opponents.
JJZ: This match was good. I'd imagine 2nd or 3rd on the card. The playfulness in the beginning set a nice tone for how the match would play out. Not the smoothest bout but I liked the idea they were going for. I was surprised when they had a spot on the outside with no mats but Allie took the bump perfectly. I liked the falsies and the home stretch came in at the right time. Limitless man. I think they might be our most shared promotion in PIF history.
CJD: This is actually the second match we shared off this very show too, with Statlander/Vox in the main event!
