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[2018-04-06-WWN-Mercury Rising 2018] Zack Sabre Jr vs Munenori Sawa


Phil Schneider

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Sabre actually worked a FUTEN show in 2015, and seems to be really excited to work a BattlArts guy. He keeps this mostly BattlArts style, with the matwork being pretty shooty, and really dialing down his flourishes (in fact any of the goofy stuff in the match was done by Sawa). There is some really nice grappling early. With Sawa working for leglocks, and Sabre attacking the arm. They exchange some nasty slaps to the ear which is the stiffest I can remember Sabre working, he really laid into Sawa and bloodied his mouth. Finish run was awesome, with Sabre yanking Sawa out of the air on a kick attempt and putting on a nasty STF variation. After Sawa gets to the ropes, they exchange some shots, and Sabre does another cool counter as he ducks the Ohtani punch and drags Sawa down into a sleeper which he quickly transitions into a banana split for the tap. I really liked this, it was one of my favorite Sabre performances, it wasn't his best match, but I thought he maximized the cool shit, and minimized the dumb shit in a really entertaining way.

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I actually just rewatched this today. I thought it was really pretty good and a load of fun. Sawa really came to perform on Mania weekend and cut right to the chase in this one. It was a great combination of tight grappling and some stiff strikes. They flowed into different sections of the match really well and built to the finish in a way that made everything feel that much more meaningful once the bell rang.

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This was alright and there was some good to great stuff such as the slap exchanges which featured some of the best strikes I've seen ZSJ land ever, however this still showcased one of ZSJ's worst traits which is his overly flashy fake submission game. You can blame Sawa all you want for being goofy, but ZSJ's submission game for the most part is a joke. I personally prefer effectiveness overly flashyness when it comes to grappling which is why I prefer guys like Garrini, Thatcher, Greco, Ishikawa, etc. over ZSJ.

 

The submissions on the apron were bad as they featured no struggle and they were just gifting each other limbs to grab onto. ZSJ's arm in guillotine choke is really weak looking and something he should drop from his moveset entirely. Also those armbar transitions were pretty poor. I've seen people criticize Pete Dunne for locking in poorly executed triangle chokes, but a lot of ZSJ's submissions are on par, if not worse than those triangle chokes.

 

His counter to the flying kick into the modified side STF and his banana split submission are pretty neat, however (this maybe me being overcritical as a BJJ practitioner and a huge BJJ and CACC guy) some of the decisions he made leading up to the modified banana split are questionable.

 

I didn't like Sawa's corner fast hands as they looked weak, but he made up for it with his Takuma Sano-esque rolling sole batt. That headbutt he hit on ZSJ on the apron was pretty gruesome, too.

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I boxed Golden Gloves in my early days, but it would be silly to criticize Jerry Lawler for not moving his head and winding up on his punches. Pro wrestling is it's own thing and Negro Navarro is as awesome a grappler as Yoshiaki Fujiwara just in different ways

Bad comparison.

 

As I mentioned, I've seen people criticize Dunne for locking in a poorly executed triangle choke, yet praise ZSJ's overall goofiness.

 

Also, Lawler may lack head movement, but at least it seemed like he was packing heat behind those punches and they were effective. Can't say the same for a lot of ZSJ's grappling exchanges.

 

On the Fujiwara comparison --

 

Fujiwara is a Catch guy who knows how to implement that to his game. He doesn't just transition from one sub to another to another to another just to get a pop and to get praised as a superior grappler. Fujiwara will yank someone down from the clinch and will make an armbar seem like a struggle and will make it seem effective.

 

I like ZSJ when he's seeking to torture his opponent and sticks to an effective submission instead of endlessly transitioning to multiple weak looking holds as he did here. He was great at torturing Darby Allin earlier this year, for example. But if you're gimmick is that of an advanced high level technical grappler, then go out and perform like one instead of performing like a guy who would get choked out by white belts at a Gracie Barra pop up gym.

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  • GSR changed the title to [2018-04-06-WWN-Mercury Rising 2018] Zack Sabre Jr vs Munenori Sawa

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