Super Crafter U

[9.0] "Yoshihisa Hamano is really the secret glue that has held the Japanese indie scene together for the last 20 or so years. He's the man of a hundred masks (according to his own estimates), working under an absurd amount of different names for about 20 years with next to nothing known concerning his actual origins in wrestling. We still only know a fraction of those identities as well, and according to the man himself he's had 200+ matches in a single year on at least one occasion, so there's clearly a lot more Hamano wrestling to find. What we do know, however, is that he's a really talented shooter, owning a number of gyms throughout the years (including Cerberus Gym where Keita Yano and associates used to run all of their sleazy no-ring shows), and that talent shines through greatly in his wrestling, depending on how much his gimmick allows him to shoot. His work in places like Kazushi Gumi, CAPTURE, and EXIT is incredibly compelling, with a really scary quickness that betrays his size and some of the hardest kicks I've ever seen in all of wrestling. His ground game is also something to behold, swiftly moving through holds and utilizing some really brutal techniques like his crafter lock. Also, even in his more gimmicky personas like Karate Mummy or Leatherface, he's really fun to watch, with one of the craziest vertical leap leg drops I've ever seen. All in all, Hamano is one of the unheralded GOATs of the modern Japanese indie scene, and I can't wait for him to use 5 new gimmicks before the year ends."

[8.0] "Crafter is a true modern man of mystery, a wrestling chameleon that has taken on numerous different personas and gimmicks over his long career. It's impossible to truly measure just how much he's done given that fact; even what we have here is just a small fragment of what he's done over the years, even smaller recorded on tape and even smaller (er) readily available for the public. What REALLY matters is that Crafter is a incredibly good wrestler, a guy who can grapple and strike with incredible intensity and technique and make his matches seem like brutal beatdowns more than, well, matches. If the Fighting Detective dudes can be nerdy enough to get out Keita Yano and that Toba fella they DAMN know where to find this guy for a show. Dude has that dog in him in more ways than one."