Flip Gordon vs. BUSHI – Best of the Super Juniors (Block A)
Good lord. At the tail-end of my BOSJ quest, these Block A shows are getting rough. I could not get into this at all. I don’t know if guys were missing their cue or what, but BUSHI seemed to be working in slow motion, making all of Flip’s stuff even sillier than normal. The heel beatdown actively put me to sleep and then these dudes had themselves an Epic Finishing Stretch. Flip selling by softly going ‘’Ow!’’ is a thing that absolutely needs to stop. The crowd was WAY into all of this though. **
ACH vs. Taiji Ishimori – Best of the Super Juniors (Block A)
Much better. These two fellers had themselves a tight little match that started with ACH catching a bullet from Taiji’s imaginary Bullet Club gun, shades of AJ/Nakamura circa a distant time period where they wrestled without punching each other in the dick. Time flies. Anyway, both of these guys showed top speed and athleticism, they chopped the shit out of each other and ACH absolutely killed himself doing a tope suicida. What more do you need from a house show wrestling match? ACH is a true selling genius, but his missed 450 spot is turning into the You Can’t Powerbomb Kidman of this tournament. Too predictable at this point. Everything else was a fun time. ***
Will Ospreay vs. Tiger Mask – Best of the Super Juniors (Block A)
If you can look past some of Ospreay’s goofier over-selling moments, this was the best Tiger Mask match of the whole tournament and a text-book example of how much Will’s been improving over the last few months. Fun structure with Will getting Tombstoned to death almost right off the bat and falling into the underdog role, seguing into Tiger going to work on his bad neck. The whole neck story gave all of Tiger’s offense the extra oomph and purpose it’s been missing for the entire tournament. The double armbar counter (with extra neck cranking) to the Oscutter was badass and the top-rope double-arm suplex came off as the ultimate DEATH MOVE rather than a fun fan service spot. Again, Ospreay’s Screamo Selling is very take-it-or-leave-it, but he did impress me by failing to go through the Shibata corner dropkick spot, collapsing right after charging in the corner. Clever stuff, my dudes. Speaking of clever stuff, Ospreay pulling out the Stormbreaker out of a dueling Tombstone counter sequence was WOWSERS! Dug it. ***1/4
YOH vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru – Best of the Super Juniors (Block A)
Turns out this night not only had the best Tiger Mask match of the tournament, but also the best YOH match. Much like he did for his match with one William Ospreay, grumpy Kanemaru took control of this thing and carried YOH to a great match based around repeatedly DDT’ing the shit out of him and being an all around dick. By now you know I love this whisky-drinking son of a bitch, but I gotta give props to YOHEI KOMATSU: this was the most focused singles match performance I’ve ever seen from him. He brought the underdog selling, the babyface charisma and emoted like crazy, fully winning the crowd before the end of the match.
I’m also glad the little guy’s starting to use classic Dragon-lineage offense (Dragon screw, Dragon suplex teases), because no one seemed to be picking up the torch after Tanahashi (I guess Stardust Genius-era Naito did for a bit). Gotta keep the spirit of Fujinami alive, baby. Kanemaru gave him a LOT (YOH got to kick out of the whisky mist, Deep Impact AND Brainbuster) and really went out of his way to get this kid over. Red Shoes messing up the count on the Five Star Clutch finish was a real bummer but the crowd still exploded for the upset. If YOH can fully master some of his more intricate spots (or just drop a few of them) and keep focusing on his natural babyface appeal, we could have another star on our hands. ***3/4
