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Masakatsu Funaki


Grimmas

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  • 1 month later...

A good shoot style wrestler but not the best. He came off as super athletic in the Reborn UWF and PWFG matches of his I've seen. He had this realistic intensity and a lot of neat tricks to fill down time. Unlike some other guys, I am not sure I have seen Funaki totally slow down or stop working in a shoot style match. Very fluid in the ring. The problem was he was really just passing through in pro wrestling the first time through so there's just not a ton there. Had he somehow ended up in RINGS instead of Pancrase maybe he would have enough quality shoot style matches to make a case but the volume just isn't there. I haven't thought much of anything I have seen him in since his return to pro wrestling in 2009 and that certainly doesn't help his case. He was still on the right side of 40 then and the fact that he has done so little of note over the past six years isn't good. His shoot style stuff that I've seen I have found to be really strong, but its hard to make a case for him based on about three years and maybe a dozen or so matches.

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To goodhelmet:

I'll consider him just like I will pretty much everyone who worked shoot style. (Has Wellington Wilkins Jr. been nominated yet?)

 

Analyzing strictly his stuff since returning, I think his biggest strenght is his approach towards matches. I think he's had 1-2 conventionally "great" matches since returning (20-30 minutes, big crowd, ME + I thought it was great) and a coue of very good ones that went longer but he's also had a lot of great matches in different settings. He's really good at incorporating faux-shoot stuff in his matches and has great kicks. Considering you have Regal at #10 I think you should consider Funaki because his pro style work has a simar minimalistic approach. He can have the world's best 7 minute match. I'll make a match listing for recommended viewing when I get back home in a few days if you want to/haven't been keeping up with his work.

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  • 2 years later...

Is Funaki the best short match wrestler ever? Was just thinking that he's got the 1989 Nakano match, 1994 Suzuki match, and 2012 Akiyama match to his name. All those are completely different styles yet still amazing and the Nakano match is probably the best short match ever. I also enjoyed the Aoki match from this year even though it wasn't at that level. I'm interested in taking a deeper dive into his work and seeing if he has anything else.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 3 years later...

Another one for the bump crew. Funaki has had an interesting career that hasn't always led to him having a ton of high-end stuff. As a shoot-style wrestler I have always been fond of him as a much more athletic guy compared to some others. Sure, he's not as good as Otsuka in that vein but not many are. He has managed to transition over the past decade to a fairly good vet. His stuff in AJPW when he was in the Triple Crown mix was pretty great and he's putting on good matches against pretty green wrestlers as recently as the past month with GLEAT. Like a ton of wrestlers he's someone I don't have a complete picture of so I'm going to continue to try and pull together pieces of his career to see if I can stand a little firmer on the Masakatsu Funaki is a top 100 of all time take. Let's get some quick reviews going for the dude. Sorry, I will not sequester myself to the Microscope section:

Funaki vs. Bart Vale (PWFG 3/4/91): **3/4 - Don't usually rate things like this quite frankly. Not truly worth your time. A bit long and Bart Vale doesn't exactly hold up his end of the bargain but Funaki makes what could have been a true stinker, something at least passable. And heck, he does it through his selling of Vale's floaty kicks.

Keiji Muto & Masakatsu Funaki vs. Masahiro Chono & Minoru Suzuki (AJPW 8/30/09): *** - This is Funaki's return match to wrestling. If you don't consider Pancrase, there was a near 17 year gap. That's what makes him doing a kip-up out of a headscissors work for me. He's a 40+-year-old athletic dude with the expectation is that he'll choke you out but he wants to show off he can do pro wrestling. Suzuki is the obvious choice to bridge that ring rust. The match feels much hotter when those two square off, even if Suzuki is hamming it up about 100% too much for my liking. I think the ancient Muto and Chono aren't putrid in there, and they carry a certain amount of weight. Plus Chono does a Wizard in the corner to Muto which turns into just a solid boot to the jaw. It was sick. The match sort of lives and dies with the shooters though and they do enough to carry things. Funaki also nearly ends his entire return with a dive that ends with his whole noggin' pointing towards the floor.

AKIRA & TAJIRI vs. Masakatsu Funaki & Minoru Tanaka (W1 8/23/14): ** - Yeah, don't need to make time for this. A mid-card house show tag match. I think Tanaka, someone I don't particularly love, put on the best performance, doing some decent selling.

I may have done Funaki a disservice with this match selection. We have a match where he makes it watchable, a match where he's getting his feet back under him, and a match where he is more or less deemphasized despite coming to the ring with a big belt. It might just come out that Funaki doesn't hold up under Random Match Theory. 2/3 though he sort of makes the matches so maybe he'll be fine. I don't feel like I'm being dumb to explore his case further which is a good first step.

 

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  • 9 months later...

Honestly is way better than Suzuki when it comes to late-game showings. Suzuki tries to do "big match" formula bouts a lot and it tends to backfire and make him look bad as he's mostly a filler work guy (don't know either to blame him or NJPW's general structure for that) with honestly not a lot of tricks up his sleeve to achieve such a effect. Funaki just does short-ass matches and it WORKS so well for him because of how he wrestles in general, being able to work a lot of intensity alongside legit super-athletic mat-crawling and strikes. There's no real predictability to his formula as any submission or bomb could realistically catch him the win. It does say a lot when his Triple Crown after 2 or so years back in the ring is leagues better than Suzuki's run despite Suzuki having worked way longer by comparison. 

Funaki is also quite well versed when it comes to carrying guys to compelling matches if need be. A lot of his indie matches are against random dudes who are competent but not great, and he's able to balance his style out to allow them the room to work their stuff in while obviously being booked very strong given his rep all while working mostly sub-10 minute matches. Getting a old and battered 49 year old Otsuka to a half-decent match while his ARM WAS BROKEN was a bonkers feat when I watched it and I still can't believe they let that go after that happens, but to the point where Otsuka is hurling Funaki around with German suplexes and Giant Swings. You gotta see that to believe it. Go back to his really early stuff and see him working a pretty good series of matches with a green Shamrock back in PWFG despite working huge ass length matches with the guy. I've never taken a huge deep dive into the guy but there's plenty of quality work out there alongside a fairly fun NOAH stint at the moment to consider him on the top 100.

 

 

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On 12/26/2017 at 8:46 AM, fxnj said:

Consensus among big MMA fans seems to be it was a work. 90's Pancrase seems pretty infamous in MMA circles for having worked bouts.

pancrase only had like 3 worked fights, which is the same amount of UFC, the suzuki vs funaki fight was real

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17 hours ago, Reel said:

Depends on how you want to define work, but there were a lot more than 3 fights in Pancrase where at least one guy went into the ring with no intention of winning. 

suzuki and funaki where so far above people that they would string out fights to make them look more interesting but all fights between high level fighters in pancrase were real

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Just about everyone seems to agree that Ken Shamrock took a dive against Minoru Suzuki before fighting Dan Severn in UFC because Pancrase didn't want to risk their champion losing to the NWA champion. By the way, the question of where to draw the line between a fixed fight and a worked one has the potential to be a very interesting discussion.

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7 hours ago, mmcoor said:

suzuki and funaki where so far above people that they would string out fights to make them look more interesting but all fights between high level fighters in pancrase were real

Patently untrue, on both counts. Funaki was a good fighter, I can see your point there to an extent, but guys who are head and shoulders above their competition don't lose to Jason DeLucia. Suzuki, not sold he was ever a great fighter, let alone good enough to go in there and fuck around in a real fight to further the booking.

Go watch Ken Shamrock hit a Minoru Special against Matt Hume, it's just not a promotion that was on the up and up in any way shape, or form, pretty much until the 2000s, and even then it's spotty. 

As for work/fixed fight, I've thought about Pancrase stuff for GWE, and came to the conclusion that I'm just gonna handwave it because while there are plenty of works there, I don't think it's worth the time to go through everything to suss out what's what. On top of that, is there anyone for whom a top 100 case could be made based predominately on Pancrase stuff? I don't think so. 

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  • 2 months later...
On 5/6/2022 at 3:43 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

Well, Funaki vs. Rutten is better than anything Funaki did in a pro-wrestling ring. So, there's that. 

I don't think that's fair. There's no doubt Funaki vs Rutten was a great pro-wrestling style fight (Takayama vs Frye, Sato vs Uno, and Sakuraba vs Newton are also examples of this), but Funaki had some great pro-wrestling matches during his career, including vs Nakano, Maeda, Suzuki (their UWF match was basically a preview of Pancrase), Anjo, and his AJPW matches with Suzuki and Suwama. A lot of his PWFG stuff is underrated too, which I've been meaning to take a closer look at. 

On Pancrase, it's an interesting topic because there are a few Pancrase matches included in some of the yearbooks here. Pancrase was 95% a shoot, with perhaps a handful of worked matches here and there but it should be considered a shootfighting promotion. With that said, Pancrase should also be considered a branch of the "Long UWF" and an integral part of the evolution of Kakutogi and pro-wrestling as both separate and interconnected entities. Without UWF, there wouldn't be Pancrase, and without Pancrase and UWF, who knows where Japanese MMA ends up by the 2000s. This doesn't even consider the importance of catch wrestling and the influence it had on Puroresu in general. This is why I don't mind when people consider Sakuraba's impact on JMMA when evaluating his career as a pro-wrestler because he always considered himself a pro-wrestler as a fighter and without his journey through the ranks of Takada's dojo, who knows if we even hear of him. If people want to consider Funaki's work in Pancrase, it shouldn't be discouraged as long as it doesn't form the primary foundation of their argument (he was a damn good pro-wrestler too, and is still going strong). 

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1 hour ago, Control21 said:

I don't think that's fair. There's no doubt Funaki vs Rutten was a great pro-wrestling style fight (Takayama vs Frye, Sato vs Uno, and Sakuraba vs Newton are also examples of this), but Funaki had some great pro-wrestling matches during his career, including vs Nakano, Maeda, Suzuki (their UWF match was basically a preview of Pancrase), Anjo, and his AJPW matches with Suzuki and Suwama. A lot of his PWFG stuff is underrated too, which I've been meaning to take a closer look at. 

On Pancrase, it's an interesting topic because there are a few Pancrase matches included in some of the yearbooks here. Pancrase was 95% a shoot, with perhaps a handful of worked matches here and there but it should be considered a shootfighting promotion. With that said, Pancrase should also be considered a branch of the "Long UWF" and an integral part of the evolution of Kakutogi and pro-wrestling as both separate and interconnected entities. Without UWF, there wouldn't be Pancrase, and without Pancrase and UWF, who knows where Japanese MMA ends up by the 2000s. This doesn't even consider the importance of catch wrestling and the influence it had on Puroresu in general. This is why I don't mind when people consider Sakuraba's impact on JMMA when evaluating his career as a pro-wrestler because he always considered himself a pro-wrestler as a fighter and without his journey through the ranks of Takada's dojo, who knows if we even hear of him. If people want to consider Funaki's work in Pancrase, it shouldn't be discouraged as long as it doesn't form the primary foundation of their argument (he was a damn good pro-wrestler too, and is still going strong). 

There's definitely some revisionism I feel when it comes to Funaki's quality in pro-style.....mostly because there's a perception with a lot of his recent work that he's just going through the motions and doing the bare minimum (which is understandable but I don't agree mostly) so that seems to be scaled to "he was never great" full-stop, which is definitely hard to agree with, especially given I'd argue even way back in his NJPW days he was being earmarked for big, big things despite how little experience he had. His PWFG material might not be huge but it also definitely showcases a far more meticulous style that he really didn't get to pull out more often afterwards.

 

 

 

 

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  • 7 months later...

All right ok, some of Funaki's comeback stuff is fucking dreadful looking back on it. His W-1 run is probably one of the worst examples of the dude just not giving a shit for nearly all of his matches bar when he's working with people that he likes like Shibata or whatever, he has like a trio of matches with Takayama that are the pits, just lazy UWF-nostalgia baiting with silly Muto-style booking on top. The less said about him working with crappy TNA talent and his weird shoot-work with Marufuji and the like, the better. He does get post-IGF Kendo Kashin to a entertaining match so that's something at least.

 

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 3/6/2023 at 3:04 PM, Ma Stump Puller said:

All right ok, some of Funaki's comeback stuff is fucking dreadful looking back on it. His W-1 run is probably one of the worst examples of the dude just not giving a shit for nearly all of his matches bar when he's working with people that he likes like Shibata or whatever, he has like a trio of matches with Takayama that are the pits, just lazy UWF-nostalgia baiting with silly Muto-style booking on top. The less said about him working with crappy TNA talent and his weird shoot-work with Marufuji and the like, the better. He does get post-IGF Kendo Kashin to a entertaining match so that's something at least.

 

 

 

His AJPW and NOAH stuff has aged particularly well I think.

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  • 1 month later...
On 5/5/2022 at 6:06 AM, mmcoor said:

pancrase only had like 3 worked fights, which is the same amount of UFC, the suzuki vs funaki fight was real

Try watching the fight, lol. Funaki starts off with a baseball slide and Suzuki follows with a drop kick. He later sells the finish choke by rolling his eyes into his head. I think it's obvious they were more interested in entertaining fans than having a shoot fight.

On 7/11/2022 at 4:03 PM, Control21 said:

I don't think that's fair. There's no doubt Funaki vs Rutten was a great pro-wrestling style fight (Takayama vs Frye, Sato vs Uno, and Sakuraba vs Newton are also examples of this), but Funaki had some great pro-wrestling matches during his career, including vs Nakano, Maeda, Suzuki (their UWF match was basically a preview of Pancrase), Anjo, and his AJPW matches with Suzuki and Suwama. A lot of his PWFG stuff is underrated too, which I've been meaning to take a closer look at. 

On Pancrase, it's an interesting topic because there are a few Pancrase matches included in some of the yearbooks here. Pancrase was 95% a shoot, with perhaps a handful of worked matches here and there but it should be considered a shootfighting promotion. With that said, Pancrase should also be considered a branch of the "Long UWF" and an integral part of the evolution of Kakutogi and pro-wrestling as both separate and interconnected entities. Without UWF, there wouldn't be Pancrase, and without Pancrase and UWF, who knows where Japanese MMA ends up by the 2000s. This doesn't even consider the importance of catch wrestling and the influence it had on Puroresu in general. This is why I don't mind when people consider Sakuraba's impact on JMMA when evaluating his career as a pro-wrestler because he always considered himself a pro-wrestler as a fighter and without his journey through the ranks of Takada's dojo, who knows if we even hear of him. If people want to consider Funaki's work in Pancrase, it shouldn't be discouraged as long as it doesn't form the primary foundation of their argument (he was a damn good pro-wrestler too, and is still going strong). 

I've always been in favor of grandfathering in early Pancrase and RINGS for how it marketed itself as a form of pro wrestling and was perceived as that at the time. Rutten/Funaki even placed in the WON 1996 MOTY voting. Doing that also sidesteps the arguments about which Kosaka/Tamura fights are works and which should be ignored for being shoots, when really I think they're all fantastic and add a ton to their cases. Besides, you could make a strong argument for removing early Pancrase and RINGS fights entirely from MMA records just for how the rules with rope breaks and banning grounded head strikes made for completely different fights than what you get in UFC.

PRIDE is trickier since that was basically the point where MMA became its own thing rather than a branch of pro wrestling, but I could see the argument for including certain works and shoots that have a pro wrestling feel to them. Frye/Takayama goes in that category for me. I watched it recently and it kind of hit me how it's basically two pro wrestlers adapting the classic your-turn-my-turn puro strike exchange trope into a shoot setting. I'm borderline on Sakuraba's stuff but I'm fine with the Newton fight at minimum. Read a pretty interesting discussion about this subject on Sherdog the other day.

https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/mma-on-point-the-secret-world-of-fixed-japanese-mma-fights.4259351/page-2

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