Battlarts

Battlarts (格闘探偵団バトラーツ, Kakuto Tantei-dan Batoratsu^?) (Fighting Detectives Batoratsu) was a professional wrestling promotion based in Koshigaya, Saitama, Japan. The promotion was formed in 1996 by Japanese wrestler Yuki Ishikawa and featured all of the wrestlers from the Fujiwara Gumi promotion, who had abandoned the promotion in favor of Battlarts. They ran shows in the Tokyo area regularly from 1998 to 2002.

Even though Battlarts' style was based around shoot-style wrestling, the promotion often cooperated with other federations and styles, including RINGS, Kingdom, Michinoku Pro and Big Japan Pro Wrestling. The biggest co-promotion occurred on October 17, 1999 when Battlarts and The Great Sasuke's Michinoku Pro Wrestling presented "Michinoku Pro vs. Battlarts", which was headlined by a tag match pitting the owners of both promotions (Great Sasuke and Ishikawa) against Jinsei Shinzaki and Alexander Otsuka.

The promotion ceased running regular shows and events in 2001 due to "management aggravation". Battlarts eventually began to run monthly shows mainly in Tokyo, Saitama, and Shizuoka Prefecture, often co-promoting with Daisuke Ikeda's Fu-ten, Kiyoshi Tamura's STYLE-E and Satoru Sayama's RJPW promotions. On September 14, 2008 at a press conference with Yuki Ishikawa and Shinjiro Otani Battlarts announced a working agreement with Pro Wrestling ZERO1.

It was revealed in late December 2010 that Battlarts will be closing their doors sometime in 2011.^[1] The promotion held its final event on November 5, 2011.

Alumni

• Alexander Otsuka
• Minoru Tanaka
• Yuki Ishikawa
• Daisuke Ikeda
• Ikuto Hidaka
• Joe Malenko
• Carl Malenko (also known as Carl Greco)
• TAKA Michinoku
• Shoichi Funaki
• Katsumi Usuda
• Muhammad Yone
• Anthony Carelli (AKA Johnny GeoBasco and now Santino Marella in WWE)
• The Willow

Championships and tournaments

• Annual Battlarts Young Generation Battle League

References

External links

• Kakuto Tantei-dan Batoratsu Official Japanese Website
• Battlarts Japanese News Site
• Battlarts B-Blog
• Bati Bati Cafe
• ZERO1 USA English language website
• ZERO1 Japanese language website