IWA East Coast Battle of the Butchers, Nitro, WV
Where did Daisuke Sekimoto make his U.S. debut? Nitro, West Virginia, on the first IWA East Coast show. Sekimoto came in because Mad Man Pondo was obviously friendly with the Big Japan office. Two days later he did an IWA Mid-South show in New Albany, Indiana, wrestling Nate Webb, then didn’t return to true U.S. soil until 2008 with Chikara. (He did wrestle a Dec. 2004 match in Saipan, which is technically U.S. territory.)
Whomstever was running the music at this show had just a terrible time. The ring announcer would announce the next participant, and then somewhere between 30 seconds and 3 minutes later, their music might play.
Both men give a clean break in the corners, having backed their opponents there in tie-ups. Ian outwrestles Sekimoto a bit early, as was often the thing you had to establish early in Ian matches around this time. Sekimoto establishes power with a shoulderblock, dropping Ian like a rock and sending him to the floor to think about it.
After an ill-advised Ian-led test of strength ends with Sekimoto stomping Ian’s fingers, Rotten starts going to the eyes, then Sekimoto posts his own shoulder on a charger to the corner, and the submission master goes to a cross armbreaker. While they’re in the hold, one of the yokels yells out, “THIS ISN’T TWISTER, LET’S WRESTLE!” proving you cannot please everyone.
Rotten staying on the shoulder. A fan yells “GIT-R-DONE” and I have never been less surprised. Ian wraps the arm around the ring post twice, and back inside he does a B-Boy tribute with a running dropkick into Sekimoto’s face in the corner.
Sekimoto dodges an Ian charge in the corner and hits a powerslam, and follows up with a big ol’ frog splash for two. Sekimoto now hammering away on Ian, just totally overpowering him and beating the crap out of him. “HIT HIM WITH THE CHAAAAIR” a fan shouts. Ian complains about a hair pull and then hits a low blow even though the ref hadn’t actually responded to Ian’s direction to Be Distracted.
Rotten coming back with European uppercuts and chops, but Sekimoto turns it around and drills Ian with two chops. Back downstairs from Rotten, and now he’s hammering Sekimoto down in return. Ian with a Vader Bomb, which greatly amuses Ian, and he gets a two count. He goes up for it again, and Sekimoto is up, gets the torture rack, and Ian gives it up.
This is actually a pretty enjoyable match that I suspect loads of people are still unaware ever happened at all, but it sure did. Like the Hero-Castagnoli match, it’s worked in sort of an old Mid-Atlantic TV main event style. It’s not real long, both guys get their chances to shine, and the good guy wins, though clean and not by DQ or whatever. I fuck around a lot about Ian’s MARVELOUS TECHNICAL ABILITY which I got into in some other Ian review, but he really was a better wrestler than a lot of people still might think. He wasn’t smooth with his shit but he did it with enough confidence that you could believe in it if you wanted to believe in it.
Tape Machines Are Rolling 
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