Tetsuya Endo vs. Kazusada Higuchi – King of DDT (Semi-Finals)
The ‘Guch losing here was a bummer, but otherwise they worked a match that made sense. Both guys were trying to end it as fast as possible in order to save their HP for the finals and it made for an exciting 10 minutes. Beyond the tournament urgency, the dynamic was on point: Higuchi throwing his smaller opponent all over the place with gnarly power offense, Endo bumping like a maniac and using his high speed flippy skillz to make comebacks. Kinda felt like a more reasonable version of the Ospreay/Archer matches from last year. They established the Yurikamome as a potential trump card for Endo (‘Guch countering the first one with a backbreaker was rad) and eventually turned it into the nastiest possible finish, Higuchi doing a literal split while trapped in the hold. Dug it! ***1/4
Akito vs. T-Hawk – King of DDT (Semi-Finals)
This followed the same basic logic as the previous match: Akito going for an early win only to run into a wall of pure knife-edge chop violence. The drama was even more ramped up here, especially if you had the slightest investment in any of these two guys. I started sweating bullets for my boy T-Hawk when Akito went full Volk Han on his ass, cutting off all of his offense with tricked out rolling legbar shenanigans.
They worked with a similar technician vs. striker template as the T-Hawk/Oishi match and the lovely cohesiveness of it all was so very pleasing. The biggest difference here was that T-Hawk actually looked in serious trouble. He sold this predicament brilllantly: screaming in pain during submissions and desperately trying to Guh punch his away out of them. Great stuff – the kind of match that brings back memories of those first G1 Climaxes where you stay up all night to cheer for your favorite. ***3/4
Danshoku Dino & Seigo Tachibana vs. Yukio Sakaguchi & Saki Akai
I’ll take dumb pantyhose comedy over Dino’s usual shtick any day of the week. Let’s just do a pantyhose match on every show instead of the usual rape match – I’d be totally cool with it. I’m also a huge fan of Saki’s midcard rivalry with Tachibana. Their crouching Yakuza face-offs bring me great joy. **
HARASHIMA, Chris Brookes, Minoru Tanaka, Yuki Ueno & Naomi Yoshimura vs. Daisuke Sasaki, Mad Paulie, Soma Takao, El Lindaman & Nobuhiro Shimatani
This gave me serious Super J-Cup Losers Tag Extravaganza vibes. Everyone put their best foot forward and worked a rocking sprint with no down time whatsoever. Once again, Tanaka seemed to be having a blast working with the DDT crew. He had shockingly high end chemistry with Sasaki and worked a sweet double team rush with fellow handsome middle-aged indie legend HARASHIMA. Linda and Shimatani brought the comedy without ever derailing the action, while Brookes supplied the movez (including a beautiful top-rope double-arm suplex). Everything felt perfectly laid out, with a clear crescendo of radness building towards a wacky dive sequence to set up the eventual finish between HARASHIMA and Shimatani. Fuuuuun. ***1/2
Konosuke Takeshita, Shunma Katsumata, Shinya Aoki & Keigo Nakamura vs. Jun Akiyama, Makoto Oishi, Mizuki Watase & Hideki Okatani
Just what the doctor ordered: another multiman banger courtesy of the good folks at Junretsu and All Out. As it’s now standard practice with these matches, this had a healthy dose of hatred and intensity from everyone involved. Young boys scrapping for Uncle Jun’s approval, Big Ace Takeshita fighting off the entire opposing team to establish dominance, Katsumata popping the crowd with ridiculously-clever house cleaning offense. These were a few things deserving of praise that happened in this professional wrestling match. Other highlights: Keigo making up for his botched springboard with a violent corner dropkick of pure animosity and the RESPECTFUL POP for the first time ever Akiyama/Aoki confrontation. The table’s now perfectly set for Akiyama/Takeshita at Ultimate Party. Don’t want to jinx it by setting the bar too high, but this is officially one of my most anticipated matches of the year. ***1/2
Tetsuya Endo vs. T-Hawk – King of DDT (Finals)
These guys needed to have a life-changing scorcher in order to validate Higuchi’s exclusion from the finals. It wasn’t quite that, but we still got an extremely good match out of their attempt at tournament final greatness. The tension was palpable throughout the first half: Endo lighting T-Hawk’s fuse by attempting to GOLIATH BIRD EAT HIM right at the bell and inadvertently setting himself up for a life of pain. The dickishness was on point and both personalities came through in a big way.
Their eventual foray into videogame epicness had a lot of hits and a few misses (especially compared to Endo’s recent videogame banger with Yuki Ueno). First time match-up nerves might’ve gotten to them on that top-rope botch, but they still came through on a bunch of other wild sequences, namely that back and forth Cerberus/Spanish Fly fighting spirit throwdown and T-Hawk’s absolutely murderous Black Tiger Bomb. They got the restricted Korakuen crowd to come alive near the end, T-Hawk looking strong in defeat and capping off a great tournament with another top-tier performance. Pretty sure they have a better match somewhere in them, but this’ll do for now. ***3/4
