INTRODUCING – SEICHI IKEMOTO !

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Seichi Ikemoto born August 24th, 1975 is a retired Mixed Martial Artist who finished his fighting career in 2013 with a total of 45 fights resulting in 21 wins, 19 losses and 5 draws most notably fighting the likes of Daisuke Nakamura, Kyosuke/Hitamaru Sasaki Shinya Aoki, Takuya Wada and Eddie Alvarez who he lost to via TKO when fighting in Atlantic City New Jersey in 2005. His career started in 1999 for ‘Shooto’ but over the years he would branch out to Deep and Pride, he also made one appearance for K-1 in 2010.

In 2003 he made his professional wrestling debut for Kaientai Dojo defeating ‘THE TURKEY’ (DJ Nira) in just over three minutes. That would be his only pro wrestling match of the year but in 2004 he would return to K-Dojo to defeat Shiori Asahi in a singles match, he also worked two dates for DDT where he teamed up with Riki Sensyu to take on KENSHIN and Sanshiro Takagi which absolutely sounds must watch.

In 2005 he promoted his own MMA event labelled “REALRHYTHM” which was an event that bought together hip hop music and MMA, He was scheduled to face Daisuke Nakamura in the main event but had to pull out due to his injuries from the Eddie Alvarez fight in the USA.

Ikemoto was known for the ‘double punch’ which quite simply was a ‘double punch’ where he’d hit you with two fists at once and believe it or not this maneuverer led to victories within the Octagon so that’s kinda cool, gotta find some footage of Ikemoto landing the double punch.

Ikemoto loves Zoo Animals, he would attempt to imitate the movements of certain A-Pex Predators when fighting.

Nowadays Ikemoto owns and operates kickboxing gyms for women in Japan under the ‘STYLE’ banner. Translations and such are a tad difficult with the website but check it out HERE for yourself as it is very interesting. Their goal is to make women feel comfortable when working out, attempting to provide a clean safe space where ladies can purely focus on their activity instead of the usual trials and tribulations that could arise when joining a mainstream gym.

UWF RULES: SEICHI IKEMOTO VS SOMA WATANABE – GLEAT MARCH 13TH 2022

Ikemoto has that Masakatsu Funakai/Minoru Suzuki gene that prevents you from ageing normally, the guy is closer to fifty then he is forty but good lord he looks better than most guys in their twenties. How and why did it take until he was in his late forties to become booked for a decent promotion ? I know he worked a couple dates for NOAH but they were nothing six man tags for the most part. It’s a crime because he’s simply that good, every match of his leaves me astounded at his ability. The match exceeded every expectation and in the end when the bell finally rang I had no second thoughts when adding this to the list of top 5 matches of 2022 thus far.

Yeah I love Ikemoto but this isn’t a case of me gravitating towards a guy just for a laugh… This dude is genuinely a great performer and easily one of the best UWF style fighters in Japan or the world for that matter. Us little vocal group of Puroresu nerds on Twitter need to make our voices heard about Ikemoto like holy shit this guy needs to be on every single Lidet UWF show at a minimum. He rolls on the mat as good as anyone whilst also having excellent core strength and balance allowing him to nail violent strikes from just about anywhere. Soma more than held his own and gave back as good as he got, he only managed to take away two of Ikemoto’s five points but Soma still found multiple ways to impress the audience. This was Soma’s best ever UWF performance, if he’s going to keep losing in the UWF format then they gotta make sure he loses to genuine superstars like Ikemoto instead of old broken down dudes because this finally gave Soma an appropriate ‘rub’ because the match quality was so high. You gotta check this one out people, Ikemoto deserves way more eyes on him.

WATCH
RATING – 8/10

TAKAFUMI ITO VS SEICHI IKEMOTO – FANCY NIGHT CLUB PRO WRESTLING 2019

I don’t know what date this is but guys trust me you’re going to have to watch this for yourself because today we’ve discovered some indie GOLD! This match is in a really fancy bar with the 75-100 people in the high roofed room all wearing suits and looking important so I don’t know what is actually going on but matches like these remind me why I started this blog in the first place. Start putting respect on my man Ikemoto’s name because if he lands a semi-consistent gig with GLEAT then it’s all over for everyone. There’s mats laid down and the two shooters are tearing it up, literally top tier mat work occurring. POP MUSIC IS PLAYING IN TBE BACKGROUND!

Whatever I’m watching is the best stuff ever and I’m not in the right frame of mind to properly communicate the emotions I’m feeling butthis is the best, doesn’t get much better than this. Big time suplex by Takafumi, Ed Sheeran “Shape Of You” is playing whilst Ikemoto is open hand palm striking Ito, this is legendary folks.

GOTCH STYLE PILEDRIVER ON THE MATS! MINORU SPECIAL FROM IKEMOTO! Ikemoto wins the bout, whatever this was I adored it to the fullest degree.

WATCH
RATING – PERFECT

MASAKATSU FUNAKI VS SEICHI IKEMOTO – BODYMAKER GYM PRESENTS GLADIATOR VS DEMOLITION 9/2/2018

Masterful.

Holy shit what a display of striking we just witnessed in one of the coolest five minute matches I’ve ever seen. Is Ikemoto really one of the great wrestling minds we are only now starting to seriously pay attention to? His timing and foot placement is simply first class, he knows exactly where to be at the right times.

They were wrestling in an Octagon at a cool venue I’ve seen some indies run in Osaka, the arena is packed in like sardines and they were loving every second of action between these two professionals. Funaki is of course a god among men so as polished as Ikemoto looked he was one step behind the pancrase legend who dished out some wicked palm strikes and kicks. The ref called the fight off after five minutes after Funaki perfectly executed a rolling koppu kick, loved this!

I’ve had great fun reviewing some of Ikemoto’s finest stuff, I’ll certainly be covering more of his stuff in the future. If there are any Ikemoto matches you’d like to see me review then comment directly or get in contact via twitter.

WATCH
RATING – 7/10