Tadasuke & YO-HEY vs. Haoh & Nioh
The Shakespearean odyssey that is the Stinger/RATELS saga continues. Betrayal, heartbreak and decent midcard wrestling. What more do you need to start a show? With Tadasuke turning on YO-HEY at the end of this match, RATELS could be on their last legs and a complete shakeup of the junior division might be coming! Just kidding, this feud will keep going for another 5 years. Besides the closing angle, the best parts of the match were the fun reactions from the two ladies on the Abema commentary team. Their excitement really helps fill in for a lot of the missing crowd noise of this cursed COVID wrestling universe. **1/4
Kotaro Suzuki, Yoshinari Ogawa & Kinya Okada vs. Atsushi Kotoge, Hajime Ohara & Seiki Yoshioka
Kotaro saving the Abema team from Yoshioka’s Quebrada destruction was a nice gesture in a match that certainly got the job the done but failed to leave any kind of lasting impression. I’m amused with Ohara fully embracing Full Throttle’s motor-revving shtick while Yoshioka seems to want no part of this non-sense. Very glad the ex-Strong Heart got the pin and Kotaro title shot here as he’s been a midcard highlight for the past few months. **1/2
Naomichi Marufuji, Masaaki Mochizuki & Yuko Miyamoto vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima, Shuhei Taniguchi & Mohammed Yone
You know it’s a special occasion when you’ve got the entire M’S ALLIANCE on deck. The fun guest spots here held my attention more than anything in the previous two matches, so that’s a win. Mochi and Katsu are always an explosive pairing, even on a throwaway midcard 6-man. Old man Mochizuki (very accurately referred to as the Dragon Gate Ironman by the commentary team) can’t kick as hard as the Wolf child anymore, but he still has some tricks up his sleeve. And by tricks I mean a dope spinning legsweep. **3/4
Daisuke Harada © vs. HAYATA – IPW Jr. Heavyweight Title
I enjoyed the lead-in tags between these two, but this didn’t do much for me. The tricked out standoff in the middle of the match told the whole story: these guys know each other too well. The chemistry is there, but this type of wrestling felt cold in a big arena with such limited crowd reactions. Considering HAYATA backstabbed Harada to join the enemy faction, you’d think some good old fashion hatred would be in order, yet there wasn’t much emotion to be found. Mall goth legend HAYATA isn’t the greatest big match wrestler and his best role tends to be on the defensive (see match with Ogawa from January). Unfortunately, there was a lot of HAYATA offense here and it ranged from weak-looking to straight up botched. Even my love for Harada couldn’t keep me on board for this one. **3/4
Takashi Sugiura, Kazushi Sakuraba & Kendo Kashin vs. Masa Kitamiya, Manabu Soya & Yoshiki Inamura
Soya working a god damn headlock on Saku had more energy than anything in the previous match. I’m not kidding. Just the most unexpectedly great pairing, shades of Soya/Hideki on the last Korakuen. The Big Red Manabu thrives against shooters and him playing Gary Albright against Sakuraba’s unmatched ground technique was a total blast. Everyone else except a certain ex-WWE trainer brought it too, Big Daddy Sugi getting the biggest pop of the night by throwing up the Pro-Wres Love pose after cleaning house with dragon screws. A real fun time! ***
Keiji Muto vs. Kaito Kiyomiya
For a long 2020 Muto singles match, I’d say this was a minor miracle. Most of the discourse about the match has been focused on the result, completely overshadowing a great performance from Kaito. The boy wonder worked his ass off to make this thing work and earned my eternal respect, regardless of how the match ended. He brought so much to the table here, initially staying on top of Muto with clever dragon screw counters, then putting on a selling masterclass when the old man took over. The crazy range of emotion and heart he added to the match showed just how far he’s come since his first title reign.
Grandpa Muto obviously comes with a whole bag of issues. He’s a 57 year old man with cyborg knees and a tendency to power nap through his own submission holds. That being said, he went out of his way to keep his offense interesting (can’t remember the last time I’ve seen him pull out that killer inverted dragon screw) and left a lot of the spotlight to young Kiyomiya. I’m not saying this is a match everyone needs to rush out to see, but it worked and kept me engaged for all duration. Which is not something I was expecting at all. ***1/2
Go Shiozaki © vs. Kenoh © – GHC Heavyweight Title + GHC National Title
I can’t think of a worse nightmare scenario than ‘’60 minute big arena match with handclap-only reactions’’. Keeping that in mind, I thought Go and Kenoh made the best of this impossible situation and I’m confident the match would be busting a lot of spreadsheets if it had been wrestled in front of a pre-COVID crowd. These guys played the long game by putting together a classic Epic Match layout filled with multiple limb work subplots, gruesome strike exchanges, widescreen arena spots and nods to our old pal Ghost Misawa.
Coming off a strong performance against Nakajima, Kenoh continued to cement himself as a viable top star and made me a believer with his performance here. The evil Goblin Prince delivered on all fronts: kicking the daylights out of Go, bringing the selling when Shiozaki tried to take out his leg and leaving the fans with a perfect iconic snapshot of the match with that glorious diving foot stomp to the foor. I thought he was a much better Go opponent than Marufuji, and not just because there’s more shelf life left on him.
There’s few tropes in wrestling that I enjoy more than the broken down veteran champion (see my undying love for Tanahashi). Go nailed that archetype to perfection in this match. Smeared in half-ripped bandages and nasty bruises, the champ took an endless amount of full force shoot kicks to the face, sold everything like his body could give out on him at any minute and powered through with the poise and fighting spirit of a true Kobashi disciple.
Another big hook was how they were able to gradually make Yokohama Bunka break the no-noise regulations through the sheer power of GOOD WRESTLING. Big pops for a lot of the late-match sequences, notably Go cutting off the diving footstomp with a perfect mid-air lariat. Judging by these reactions, I’d say the match peaked a bit too early, but they still laid out a very satisfying final stretch built around Shiozaki’s Moonsault. A colossal effort from both men – I felt it in my bones when when Go let out that post-victory ‘’WE ARE NOAH’’. ****1/4
