Really loved this match. Just a real tightly packaged combination of some of my favorite things in wrestling. First, you have a great respect for time and pacing as Ku eschews any kind of feeling out process in favor of just blasting Yehi with some early elbow strikes as they go to lock up.
Then, there’s the violence. These two hit each other real hard throughout this whole thing. You can see Ku’s skin start to blister and bruise beneath all his tattoos. On my second viewing of the match, you can even see a slight cut on Ku’s shoulder that can only have been drawn legitimately. It’s great stuff to watch these two really take the fight to each other. Few things this year will be as cool as Yehi going from sitting down on the mat to eat one of Ku’s kicks to standing up to blast him in the face with an elbow. Real simple to understand and incredibly effective.
Lastly, there’s the fact that they fill the time really well. All the mat work feels sensible and tightly worked. There’s hints of leg work from Yehi that he only has enough time to develop in the last few minutes but even before that, you can definitely see the wheels turning in both men’s heads as they try to outposition the other. This lends itself to small structural cleverness like Yehi learning to dodge Ku kicking out his legs to drop him into a choke.
This is a great match. It gives you exactly what you might expect from these two and does it in a reasonable, unpretentious manner. Definitely seek this out.
