(Almost) 5-Star Match Reviews: Takashi Sugiura vs. Yoshihiro Takayama – NOAH 10th Anniversary Show

Few wrestlers from recent times have been more daring and willing to risk their wellbeing for their craft more than Pro Wrestling NOAH’s Yoshihiro Takayama. For over a decade he treated his face and body like a literal punching bag and achieved quite a lot for doing so. As a result he became a relatively rare kind of wrestler: a giant that could go to the mat and could endure all kinds of punishment.

But did Takayama’s penchant for throwing caution to the wind lead to any memorable matches? Read on to find out.

The story

For anyone unfamiliar with him, Takayama was one of the biggest Japanese wrestling stars of the 2000s. He was a former UWFi guy who joined All Japan in the mid-1990s and then followed Misawa to NOAH. He was also an interesting hybrid in the wrestling business: a tall superheavyweight who was also very skilled on the mat. Think Big Show meets Ken Shamrock. His unique background and ludicrous toughness caused NOAH’s bookers to make the questionable decision to book Takayama in MMA fights when PRIDE took New Japan by storm and almost overtook the wrestling business completely and permanently.

At the time, most pro-wrestlers who either entered MMA by choice or were booked against MMA by promoters suffered stinging defeats that all but destroyed their reputations (Shinya Hashimoto and Yuji Nagata are two of the biggest victims of this era of wrestling/MMA hybrid contests).

Takayama likewise lost all of his official MMA fights; however, one of them was so mind-numbingly awesome that, well, I’ll let Dave Meltzer describe how it came off:

“You could have said the first two minutes of the match were the greatest two minutes in the history of MMA, boxing, kickboxing, pro-wrestling and just about anything short of sex, and not have been disappointed, because it was. I’ve seen tapes of the greatest boxing matches in history, what was purported to be the most exciting round in the history of Muay Thai, every great pro wrestling match ever filmed boxing, and those two minutes beats any of them” – Meltzer, July 8, 2002.

Meltzer was, of course, referring to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le69DBh7YwY

This fight made Takayama an overnight sensation and basically made him into the Mount Everest of puro for the better part of the next decade. Even if he lacked technique or credibility he had such an aura of indestructibility about him that his opponents – who were almost always much smaller and lighter – would struggle just to put a dent in him. This led to some great matches on his part, including an absolute epic against Kenta Kobashi in 2004.

Over the years Takayama found regular work all over the Japanese wrestling scene by milking his fame and reputation from that fight with Don Frye. He was able to flirt with the world title scene on a regular basis, which is how he found himself facing Sugiura in this match that took place around the 10th anniversary of NOAH’s founding.

His opponent in this match, Takashi Sugiura, was once a pupil of his. Sugiura was also a Kurt Angle cosplayer with a similar (read: inferior) background and a similar style (with an ankle lock and an Olympic Slam as his finishers). He was relatively short by NOAH standards but still stocky and built enough to be a semi-believable heavyweight. His explosive, high-impact style made him popular with both NOAH’s native audience and foreign audiences.

After a decade of working up the ranks in both the junior heavyweight and full heavyweight divisions, Sugiura won NOAH’s world title in 2009 and embarked on a grand reign, the second-longest in the company’s history. His first two successful defenses were against New Japan outsiders and in his third defense he took on Takayama who was technically a freelancer but considered NOAH his home promotion. Takayama stood around eight inches taller and outweighed Sugiura by around eighty pounds. He was Sugiura’s biggest challenge to date, both physically and in terms of star power. Could Sugiura, NOAH’s biggest long-term project, find a way to overcome this mammoth of a man?

The match

This match took place on July 10, 2010.

This is for Sugiura’s GHC Heavyweight Championship. Sugiura walks up to Takayama and pulls his hair which causes the giant to hit back with monstrously stiff forearms. A standing strike ensues. Both men slump down at least once but get right back up. Sugiura hits a running boot and Takayama’s completely nonplussed by it. Then Takayama hits a running dropkick that sends Sugiura across the ring and to the floor.

Takayama hits an ax handle to the floor but then Sugiura reverses an Irish whip into the barricade. Sugiura hits one successful running big boot but when he tries again Takayama gets his knee up. Takayama stiffs Sugiura with kicks and then lands a brutal back suplex onto the ringside commentary table which doesn’t even dent, much less break. Takayama lands more stiff elbows and knees which slow Sugiura down. Sugiura tries getting back into the ring but Takayama cuts him off with a baseball slide dropkick and a diving knee.

Back in the ring, Takayama covers for a one-count. Sugiura valiantly tries trading strikes again but Takayama shuts him down with another kneelift. Takayama ties Sugiura in the tree of woe and hits more knees to the champion’s chest and gut. Sugiura fires up after Takayama does a mocking cover but Takayama stiffs him even more to cut off a comeback. Takayama locks in a front chancery and then hits a big leg drop, both of which get two-counts. He punts Sugiura’s spine and does more mockery with the way he covers. Sugiura tries fighting back again and this time Takayama mocks him with the scariest fake laugh I’ve seen in wrestling in a long time. Then Takayama lands one of the stiffest head-butts in wrestling, one rivaling Shibata’s on Okada in terms of impact.

Takayama snapmares Sugiura and goes for a Penalty Kick but Sugiura catches his foot. Sugiura escapes another back suplex and counters again into a big capture suplex. Sugiura kicks Takayama’s spine now as blood pours from Takayama’s forehead. Sugiura lands more stiff kicks to Takayama’s back and chest and then slaps the taste out of his mouth. He blocks a boot, lands a rolling kick to the gut, and then hits a snap suplex for a two-count. Both guys trade kicks to the face (notice neither man is slapping his thigh to make any noise; hint, hint GUNTHER) until Takayama lands a side suplex. Takayama goes for a corner jumping knee but Sugiura tanks it and drops Takayama down to the mat. Sugiura returns the favor with running kicks and knees to Takayama’s face. He places Takayama in the middle of the ring and attempts another such a kick but Takayama catches him, plants him down, and knees him right in the face for a close two-count.

Takayama elbows and head-butts a prone Sugiura until it looks like the champ is unconscious. Sugiura slowly gets up to avoid a loss by referee’s decision but Takayama drops him with another running knee that also gets a two-count. Backdrop suplex. Two-count. Takayama pulls his kneepad down and charges. Sugiura blocks and lands a German suplex. Both men collapse, recover, and then trade slaps until Takayama lands another big knee. Sugiura blocks an Everest German so Takayama punishes him in a corner with more stiff strikes. Sugiura blocks a kick, slaps back, and lands a German suplex that sends Takayama head-first into the second turnbuckle. Sugiura kicks a seated Takayama until the referee makes him stop to check on the challenger’s condition.

Sugiura backs off for a moment, hits a running knee from across the ring, and then hits another German and a running knee of his own for a two-count. A bridging German gets Sugiura another two-count. Bridging dragon suplex. Two-count. Olympic Slam. Two-count again. Takayama blocks a second Olympic Slam with a knee and hits a Backdrop for a two-count of his own. More brutal knees from Takayama can’t keep Sugiura down. Everest German Suplex! One, two, Sugiura kicks out once again. Takayama tries again. Sugiura blocks and now both men trade close-fisted punches. Sugiura fires up and unloads with lefts and rights followed by a big kneelift. Takayama goes down but Sugiura wants to win emphatically. He hits not one but two Olympic Slams. The referee counts one, two, and three! Sugiura retains!

Winner and STILL GHC Heavyweight Champion after 15:49: Takashi Sugiura

Review

This was a brutal match, ideal for anyone that likes their wrestling violent and realistic. It was no-nonsense and full-contact from the opening bell. It had that classic David vs. Goliath dynamic both in terms of size disparity and in terms of story. Sugiura was the challenger but Takayama was the man to beat. It was simple, physical, and intense. In many ways this was a better version of Brock Lesnar vs. The Big Show with the lumbering giant going way beyond the confines of his size and relative immobility. It was fun watching Takayama beat Sugiura up and watch the champion find a solution to this seemingly insurmountable problem. You know a match is worth watching when it can be found for free on YouTube but it’s so graphic that the sight gives it a content warning.

Despite looking a bit uninspiring, Takayama made for such a compelling wrestling monster. He wasn’t just a lumbering giant that rarely left his feet; he was deceptively quick and could lock in submission holds that made the most out of his weight advantage. Anyone who has ever been in a fight knows what kind of problem this creates: imagine fighting someone bigger than yourself and you get in close to try and life him up, only for him to then trap you by the neck or arm and you find yourself fighting to stay conscious.

Worse still for the smaller defending champion, his opponent hit exceptionally hard and could take hits better than almost anyone in the country. These concepts crystallized during the match: Takayama dominated Sugiura and only started showing signs of damage and weakness after he hurt himself with that stiff head-butt. In other words, Sugiura had to try and out-Takayama Takayama by taking hits like a planet until an opening could be found. And when he found it he threw bombs at the challenger, showing off his incredible power not unlike Lesnar in his matches against Big Show and other 300-plus-pounders.

So when Sugiura finally rallied back and overcame his challenger it was as satisfying as it was exciting. Sugiura looked to be doomed from the beginning yet managed to find a path to victory that made both him and his challenger look good come the end. He overcame the odds and Takayama was shown to be the ultimate threat given how hard both men had to hit each other and how much power both guys had to put behind their moves.

Final Rating: ****

If you like your wrestling simple and violent you’ll enjoy this match. It was fifteen minutes of straightforward action with a story that was easy to follow and two wrestlers that were easy to identify with. Both of them came off like incredibly tough bastards for putting themselves and each other through such incredible punishment. And at the end of the day, pro-wrestling is about making people believe that the people in the ring are extraordinary people doing extraordinary things, even if that means taking high risks and putting one’s life in peril for the sake of their craft.

Some people might be uncomfortable with the notion of blurring the line between wrestling looking real and it being real, but these two guys – and especially Takayama – wouldn’t’ve wanted it any other way.

Thanks for reading.