Dramatic Chance Loser Revival Battle Royal
Shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but DDT really know how to do a Battle Royal. Tons of fun comedy bits with the occasional bit of proper wrestling thrown in. The Naya/Iino beef war and Endo corpsing during Antonio Honda’s post-ankle injury speech were two highlights. The final showdown between Endo/Brookes was extremely well done and had me on the edge of my seat. Spoiler alert: they did the right thing and tossed Endo right back in the tournament.
T-Hawk vs. Makoto Oishi – King of DDT (Round 2)
T-Hawk excels at doing the ‘’Bro I’m gonna punch you right in the face if you don’t let go of this arm wringer’’ sell-job during basic chain wrestling sequences. He also excels at pretty much every other aspect of pro-wrestling, all of it on display in this awesome match. The Hawkster took a similar approach to his first round match against Hirata, overwhelming Oishi with deadly chops and forcing him to work his way up. The big difference here was that Oishi had more tricks up his sleeve than goofball Hirata and was able to push T-Hawk to the limit with his leg attacks and crafty offense (DIAMOND DUST~!).
Their raw Tenryu-ISM vs. indie technicality dynamic was so on point that I fully believed T-Hawk was done for once Oishi slapped on that Fujiyama knee lock. And the crowd seemed right there with me as you could feel the tension during all of the final few counters. T-Hawk needs another WRESTLE-1 type run as a company’s heel champion. The guy is too good. ***1/2
Yuki Ueno vs. Danshoku Dino – King of DDT (Round 2)
There’s only so many ways to describe how uncomfortable Dino’s shtick makes me. The man was extra horny here as he was in the ring with a handsome young dude. You can imagine what went down. Bad with a capital B.
Toru Owashi vs. Akito – King of DDT (Round 2)
Not much to say about this one even if the premise was pretty clever: Akito using T2P submission techniques against the Toryumon-born Owashi. Big Owashi valiantly fought back with his trusty Choke slams but the Cyberfight EVP quickly overwhelmed him with mat trickery. Decent wrestling was decent. **
Daisuke Sasaki vs. Shinya Aoki – King of DDT (Round 2)
This was a real mismatch on paper, but it turned out.. okay? Sort of? I dunno. Sasaki came out with MMA gloves, tricking Aoki into believing they’d have a straight forward shoot style encounter. Obviously, it didn’t take long for him to fall back on his heel tactics and start battering Aoki with chairs. I thought the match became semi-interesting once Sasaki started angling for the Crossface, which put him at a disadvantage due to Aoki’s superior mat game. Sasaki has his moments, but Aoki advancing to the next round is a much more inspired choice. **
Shunma Katsumata vs. Minoru Tanaka – King of DDT (Round 2)
Time is a flat circle, man. That’s what I kept thinking about when Shunma busted out the Ikuto Hidaka leg-pickup Ligerbomb against his old BattlARTS rival. In other words, this match ruled. They did a more cohesive version of yesterday’s Endo/Akito dueling limb work match with Katsumata looking like a million bucks against a true junior legend. Old man Minoru Tanaka felt like the world’s most mobile version of Keiji Muto here, just bombarding his young opponent with razor-sharp knee dropkicks and Figure 4’s. Meanwhile, Katsumata not only sold his ass off, but he matched Minoru’s technicality with relentlessly-clever Stretch Muffler submission tricks. The kid checked all the boxes here: contagious babyface fighting spirit, dramatic emoting and loads of inspired offense. Hopefully he gets some more singles action in the coming months. It seems we’re getting Endo/Minoru in the next round? My god. ***1/2
Konosuke Takeshita vs. El Lindaman – King of DDT (Round 2)
El Lindaman and Takeshita casually having a banger is prime Sunday afternoon content. A true David/Goliath showdown with gigantic Aceboy Takeshita playing with little Lindaman for half the match. Takeshita indulging Lindaman’s shoulderblocks early on before quickly obliterating him with a nasty Brainbuster was a genius opening and the match kept getting better from there. Linda could barely get in any scrap of offense until the mid-way point, but once he figured out a path towards a comeback: shit got real.
Little dude proved to be the STRONGEST HEART when he started pulling up Takeshita into some big time offense including a full-on Vertical suplex that completely blew my mind. The ending stretch was killer stuff and managed to get serious heat from the muted COVID-mode crowd, the highlights being Lindaman German suplexing the shit out of the Ace and Takeshita busting out the sweet underhook Blue Thunder THING from his Chris Brookes match. Too much fun. ***3/4
HARASHIMA vs. Kazusada Higuchi – King of DDT (Round 2)
The sheer amount of variety in DDT right now is pretty undeniable. On this show alone, we’ve had good comedy, bad comedy, leg work technical matches, Lindaman suplexing Takeshita and now two guys just stiffing the crap out of each other your viewing pleasure. This was right up my alley: big heavyweight fight feel with a major emphasis on strike exchanges.
First half of the match reeled me in pretty easily thanks to HARASHIMA going after Higuchi’s ribs and just unloading on the guy with vicious offense. That springboard double stomp looked hellacious. Higuchi’s selling was on point and Big Match HARASHIMA came off as someone not to be fucked with. The Guch’ comeback led to the slug-fest portion of the match and it was a great time. HARASHIMA brought the kicks, Higuchi supplied the chops and soon the whole thing escalated in shoot headbutt nuclear warfare.
Hard-hitting collision between two main event-level guys, all wrapped up in 13 minutes. Higuchi feels completely different from anyone else on the roster right now and would be a prime candidate for a KO-D title reign. Get this man all the way up the card. ***3/4
