Akitoshi Saito vs. Masa Kitamiya
Two pros that know how to work a simple match around shoulderblocks and lariats. That’s usually all I ask from professional wrestling. My only beef here is that old man Akitoshi shouldn’t be dominating 75% of a match against Kitamiya. Unless these matches are all laid out by bookerman NOSAWA (doubtful), I gotta lay some blame on Masa here. He often struggles to protect his badassitude and fails to properly assert himself against veterans. Honestly, if I would’ve given you the play-by-play of this match without mentioning Masa, you would probably think Saito was facing a young boy. Solid but incoherent? **
HAYATA & Kinya Okada vs. Haoh & Nioh
Not sure if this bizarro Korakuen seating arrangement was a voluntary COVID measure on NOAH’s part or if everyone flocked away from the cameras, but the place looks empty. And I mean empty by COVID Korakuen standards. It’s not helping me get into this undercard, even if this was a decent tag with all four guys putting in some effort. Haoh and Nioh brought the speedy double-teams and HAYATA fought back with his scenester vibes. Young Okada might want to rethink about doing that lucha headscissors in every match. **1/2
Shuhei Taniguchi & Mohammed Yone vs. Manabu Soya & Yoshiki Inamura
This felt a bit long considering the card placement and the people involved, but I liked the mood. Beefy heavyweight bros trading hard forearms, headbutts and other pleasantries. I know the comparison’s been done to death, but Inamura has officially surpassed fellow Kongoian Kitamiya in terms of carrying himself like a proper monster. He still gets the young boy booking treatment but wrestles like a guy ready for the next level. **1/2
Atsushi Kotoge, Hajime Ohara & Seiki Yoshioka vs. Daisuke Harada, Tadasuke & YO-HEY
I don’t think I’m ready for RATELS to wrestle other teams than Stinger. This is all happening so quickly. I need some time to adjust. Kidding aside, the Full Throttle dorks are a good fit for RATELS. Everyone brought high energy and made this an easily-digestible junior sprint. Yoshioka is already looking like the second best worker of this bunch. He can fly, he can kick and he can make me enjoy YO-HEY. Probably the highest praise I can give a wrestler. Dug how quickly the finish came together and dug that sweet ARN ANDERSON FAKEOUT DDT from Tadasuke. ***
Go Shiozaki, Kaito Kiyomita & Kotaro Suzuki vs. Naomichi Marufuji, Takashi Sugiura & Yoshinoari Ogawa – NOAH 20th Anniversary Match
Outside of the Kotaro in peril segment that went on forever, this was a pretty swell birthday bash. Good start with Uncle Yoshinari working his Ogawa Magic against whoever wanted to play with him and a killer ending stretch with Maru/Go hyping up their upcoming title match in the best way. Go’s chest is already torn to shreds from all the lead-in tags, so you know these two are not fucking around. Kaito was on point whenever he got the spotlight: great hot tag run to fire up the match after the Kotaro beatdown, some killer exchanges with Big Daddy Sugi and a clever impromptu Back suplex/neckbreaker double-team with Suzuki to save the champion’s ass. ***1/4
Katsuhiko Nakajima © vs. Kenoh – GHC National Title
The G+ commentator compared this to a kick-version of Kobashi/Kensuke at the Dome. Kobashi, sitting in as guest commentator, giggled in agreement. Another valid way to describe the match was that it was some stiff fucking shit. The kind of wrestling that works well with these muted COVID-crowds, because the sound of the strikes is loud enough to make up for the lack of heat.
Besides all the hellacious kicking, the match’s biggest strength was how they were able to babyface Kenoh. This is always tricky considering he’s such a hateful bastard, but they nailed it. By establishing Katsu as the true kick master and having Kenoh work his way up for most of the match, he became more and more sympathetic and the reaction was largely positive once he snatched that KO win. I’ve been iffy on Underdog Kenoh matches in the past (see N1 finals against Sugiura), but this time it definitely worked in his favor.
My only nitpick would be that Nakajima clearly had to dumb himself down a bit in order to eat those final shots from Kenoh, but other than that I had a blast. That epic slap war with Katsu shoot-dodging left and right felt straight out of UWFi and I left my chair for the avalanche-style Dragon suplex. Despite his cool entourage, Kenoh’s been mostly toiling on the midcard this year so this title win should help keep him above water for a while. ****
