Makoto Oishi & Mizuki Watase vs. Akito & Yukio Naya
Is there a more chill dude in wrestling than Akito? I don’t think so. Man, this was going nowhere fast early on but business picked up in a major way after the Naya hot tag. Yukio put on his big boy pants and let everyone know that he was the future King of Beef, throwing and slamming people around. This appropriate display of gigantism lit a fire under everyone else: Akito brought the clever submission spots, Watase pulled off the Kota Ibushi mid-air foot stomp counter trick and Oishi paid tribute to Super Delfin by enthusiastically telling the crowd he was about to Tornado DDT someone. Wrestling! **1/2
Antonio Honda & Super Sasadango Machine vs. Kazuki Hirata & Keigo Nakamura
What a journey this was. Nakamura the BOOMER KILLER admirably tried to block all of the boomer comedy tropes, but he ended up getting scolded by his elders and the match was turned into a full-on Honda/Hirata Musical as punishment. A chilling warning to all the youngsters thinking of standing up to boomer culture. *
Yukio Sakaguchi, Kazusada Higuchi & Saki Akai vs. Danshoku Dino, Seigo Tachibana & Yoshiko – KO-D 6-Man Tag Team Titles
Sakaguchi still can’t handle the pantyhose faces. This was pretty much the whole match: tough guy Yukio unable to wrestle due to constant corpsing from the sight of his opponents’ deformed faces. SEAdLINNING bruiser Yoshiko (sporting LOL-glasses for the occasion) supplied most of the straight wrestling with Saki and Higuchi. I popped for her big lariat on the Gooch. The final pantyhose reveal was also pretty great. *3/4
Sanshiro Takagi & Jun Akiyama vs. Konosuke Takeshita & Shunma Katsumata
Never underestimate BIG BOOMERS. Similar vibe as the Boomers’ recent match against Keigo and Okatani: lots of body slam-based discipline and slightly comical intergenerational animosity. The big difference here was that the All Out boys put up much more of a fight than the rookies. Old man Takagi’s not as hateful as the usual Junretsu crew, but what can I say, his stunner spots and weird lucha offense crack me up. Once again, the Takeshita/Akiyama segments were world class. Their chemistry reminds of Akiyama’s matches with Young Kento Miyahara from 4-5 years ago. Same kind of high-speed knee strike dodging back and forth craziness. Ultimate Party can’t come fast enough. ***1/4
Chris Brookes © vs. Drew Parker – No DQ Match – DDT Universal Title
Not my type of match, but kudos to both dudes for going hard, bumping like maniacs and getting it done in 13 minutes. An extremely prop-heavy 13 minutes, with fork boards, plastic boxes, stapler guns, ladders and tables all making an appearance. Abdullah Kobayashi supervising the action from ring-side felt right, as this definitely had more of a Big Japan vibe than the usual DDT match. I can’t shake the feeling that Parker seems to have skipped a lot of the basics during wrestling training, but they covered most of his weaknesses by having Brookes destroy him for the majority of the match. If you’re a hardcore ghoul, you’ll likely dig all of this more than me. ***
HARASHIMA, Naomichi Marufuji, Toru Owashi, Yuki Ueno & Naomi Yoshimura vs. Tetsuya Endo, Daisuke Sasaki, Soma Takao, Mad Paulie & Nobuhiro Shimatani – Elimination Match
Total blast of a 10-man tag to close the show. Big Dragon Gate vibes: all action all the time with a frenetic pace and inventive over the top elimination spots. Marufuji being eliminated first was a fun gag, as his participation alone likely bumped the match into the main event slot. We did get some good haircut comedy out of his presence early on. Thank you for your service, Maru.
As it’s often been the case in recent months, the spotlight soon found itself on Ueno and the dude knocked it out of the park as the sole survivor for Disaster Box. He worked a serious nail-biter of a segment with Sasaki before wrapping up the match in cutting edge fashion with Endo. Can’t stand the Canadian Destroyer anymore but the way they worked it here was freakin’ beautiful. A bit baffled by Endo picking Sasaki as the Kenny Omega replacement for Ultimate Party, but that match was never going to work out, so what’re you gonna do? ***1/2
