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Takashi Iizuka (2018)

122 Pts.



Iizuka spent 2018 doing two things: Taking the fall 23 times in Suzuki-gun tag matches (he never scored a single fall the entire year, FYI) and biting people. No joke, the majority of Takashi Iizuka’s offense boiled down to just sinking his teeth into his opponents. He bit them everywhere: On the head, on the arm, on the leg, on the foot. He even bit Ryusuke Taguchi on the ass a few times, which I’m pretty sure is due cause for Shark Boy to sue him for gimmick infringement. Even when Iizuka started wrestling his matches with a muzzle on, somehow it would end up being taken off of him halfway through and he would start chomping away on whichever poor schmuck wound up in his path. One time Iizuka accosted poor Kevin Kelly at ringside, forcing him to pull the muzzle off while Kevin pleaded for mercy. It was pretty funny, although Kevin certainly wasn’t laughing that night. I probably wouldn’t have been either if I was in his position.

The biggest moment of Iizuka’s year took place during World Tag League. It was a battle of Suzuki-gun tag teams, as Iizuka and his partner/boss Minoru Suzuki took on Zack Sabre Jr. and Taichi. Iizuka spent most of the match biting people, so nothing out of the ordinary there. But towards the end, Zack tried to pin Iizuka with a Japanese Leg Roll Clutch. Iizuka, to the absolute shock of everybody watching, countered the pin by locking Zack in a SLEEPER HOLD!!! Korakuen Hall erupted as Iizuka cinched in what used to be his old finishing move (before he went feral). It was as if Iizuka had snapped out of his rabid state and for the briefest of windows, we caught a glimpse of the proud, technical warrior that he once was; a man now lost to the ravages of madness, brought forth to the surface for us all to cheer, only to fall back into the quantum abyss that we call the psychotic recesses of the human mind.

So yeah, the next night he went back to biting people. C’est la vie!