[2001-03-14-BattlARTS] Takeshi Ono vs Ryuji Hijikata

[KB8]

I didn't really care one way or the other about Hijikata and his fighting spirit business, but Ono was outstanding again. He looks like one of the best wrestlers in the world in 2000/20001 and yet he mostly seems to be dicking around in barely-spotlighted undercard fights. Surely the one major blemish on Yuki Ishikawa as a booker/human being. Hijikata jumped Ono before the bell here, running him into the barricade before throwing him into the first row, and as Ono made his way into the ring for the first time he had this "okay so we're doing that, are we?" look on his face and you get a little giddy at what you fully expect him to do. Naturally he went and kicked the shit out of Hijikata. Some of his selling towards the end was incredible, like the crumpled sell of a lariat and the way he made it back to his feet like a cobra in answer to the snake charmer's punji. And like most dealings with a cobra, Hijikata wound up getting bit when he came too close.