How I Met Your Puroresu is a series dedicated to providing background information on matches in hopes of broadening horizons. These matches will be no longer than that of a sitcom as to not overwhelm a first time viewer.
Company: Pro Wrestling GLEAT
Match: Yu Iizuka vs Takuya Nomura
Match Type: UWF Rules
Length: 15 Minutes
Production Date: July 22, 2021
Air Date: July 22, 2021
What’s the style that first comes to mind when you read the name Big Japan Pro-Wrestling? Is it death match? A modern take on King’s Road via Daisuke Sekimoto or Yuji Okabayashi? It’s probably not a fast-paced junior style, although they deliver a slice of that as well. Maybe the first guy to come to mind is Takuya Nomura – a man dedicated to bringing an entirely different dynamic to the Big Japan scene.
Earlier this week, after going to a time limit draw in his challenge for the BJW Strong World Heavyweight Championship, Nomura stated that his goal is to bring the title scene back to the ways of his mentor and former champion, Hideki Suzuki. A practitioner of the catch as catch can style, Suzuki was trained by none other than Shigeo Miyato who in turn learned the ropes through Akira Maeda, a favorite of Nomura’s and the owner of the original UWF.
Although the original UWF had a run that lasted less than two years, it was rebranded Newborn UWF later in the decade. This time with Nobuhiko Takada standing alongside Maeda, Newborn folded at a similar rate. Maeda would go on to form Fighting Network RINGS while Takada would keep the UWF name, branding his company UWFi. This company would survive a pinch longer than the first two iterations and would become the place Kiyoshi Tamura became a star.
Starting in the worked-shoot vein of pro wrestling through UWFi, Tamura would work his way to legitimate MMA bouts in the Pride promotion. It wasn’t until early 2020 that his name returned to the wrestling world when it was announced he’d be part owner of Pro Wrestling GLEAT. The mission statement would be to split a card into two halves, one being traditional wrestling while the other incorporated the UWFi worked-shoot style.
Now with GLEAT looking for names in both the wrestling and MMA world, they’ve turned to a man with a similar goal of adding legitimacy to wrestling, Takuya Nomura. Just last month, Nomura faced off with Daichi Hashimoto, son of the legendary Shinya Hashimoto who worked a Tokyo Dome main event in an NJPW vs UWFi match against Nobuhiko Takada. The two brought a similar style match we’d seen between the two legends more than 25 years ago.
While Nomura isn’t an official member of GLEAT, his opponent, Yu Iizuka, is and he carries an equally impressive resume. Before signing with GLEAT, Iizuka was with Pro Wrestling HEAT UP, owned by Kazuhiro Tamura. Trained by Minoru Tanaka who started off in another UWF off-shoot promotion, Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi and later Fighting Investigation Team Battlarts, Kazuhiro Tamura continues to teach his students through shoot-style.
Since his signing with GLEAT, Iizuka has squared off in UWF rules matches (knock out or submission victories only; point system dictates the amount of rope breaks and knock downs you can sustain) against the aforementioned trainer of his trainer, Minoru Tanaka, and a UWF original, Masakatsu Funaki.
Last year Minoru Suzuki came to BJW to celebrate the final wrestling show to take place at the Yokohama Bunka Gymnasium where he had one of his first professional matches and he called out Nomura. Suzuki, a former member of the Newborn UWF, gave Nomura the largest profile match to this point in his career.
Yu Iizuka and Takuya Nomura both come into his match incredibly well-trained and battle tested. Each are currently in their mid 20s and are the perfect age to try and bring back a style that’s been sitting underground waiting for a revival.
