Soma Takao, Mad Paulie & Nobuhiro Shimatani vs. Toru Owashi, Saki Akai & Hideki Okatani
Shimatani spitting hot rhymes only to get his face booted off by Owashi was a delightful introduction here and the only thing memorable about the match. The sight of Mad Paulie with a purple baseball cap made me think that a Damnation rap off shoot might have some legs. Nobu and Paulie laying down the thugonomics on the undercard for a few weeks? Pretty harmless by DDT standards. Sanshiro-san, please book it. **
Kazuki Hirata vs. Danshoku Dino
This match certainly answered the tantalizing question asked in the name of this show. In other news, I’m so conflicted by how much I enjoy Dino’s theme. To be fair, all of DDT’s top comedy warriors have quality theme songs. But then there is the matter of the constant on-screen rape. Which was strongly featured in this match, as you might imagine. I did laugh at Hirata popping on his Magnum TOKYO glasses during the pre-Danshoku Driver sell job though.
Shinya Aoki © vs. Antonio Honda – DDT Extreme Title
Some real galaxy brain rules for this one. UWF meets First One To Laugh-type point system. It wasn’t great but I kept thinking someone like Kikutaro would do amazing in this setting.
Yuki Ueno & Naomi Yoshimura © vs. Chris Brookes & Drew Parker – KO-D Tag-Team Titles
You can always count on Nautilus to deliver the goods. There were a few moments that flirted with overly cute indie wankery, but this was mostly a whole lot of fun. Super efficient layout: the gaijin team destroying the champs right off the bat with hurty table spots and forcing them to work from underneath. I dug the intensity from the Nautilus boys as they didn’t take too kindly to all the cheap shots from the challengers and seemed more pissed off than usual. Plenty of memorable spots during the final stretch, namely the impeccably-timed diving bodypress from Ueno and Koji Iwamoto-worthy judo throw from Yoshimura. All the low blows/ref bumps from Brookes seemed a bit random but also kinda loosely fit with the GAJINS CHEAT 2 WIN story they were going for. PS – Love me a Big Boy Powerbomb from Naomi. ***1/2
NOW WITNESS THE JUNRETSU VS ALL OUT 3 ON 3 TUG OF WAR:
Konosuke Takeshita vs. Makoto Oishi
Oh man, this ruled. Razor sharp storytelling that benefitted from the urgency of the 10-minute time limit. They made great use of the size difference with Oishi relying on his crafty technique to neutralize Take’s leg. Really enjoyed Takeshita’s performance here as he struck just the right balance of vulnerability and Ace-like domination. Dude sold well when he had to but wasn’t afraid to remind everyone who’s boss when necessary. Case in point: him just TOSSING Oishi across the ring to counter the Tornado DDT and that insane one-armed Powerbomb out of a rollup sequence. Both guys’ respective styles and strengths came through in everything little thing did here, which is not an easy feat to pull off in 9 minutes. ***1/2
Jun Akiyama vs. Akito
Similar vibe as the last match, only much shorter and to the point. Akito took a page from Oishi’s playbook and tried to overwhelm Akiyama with knee attacks but Uncle Jun had none of that shit. Even if this was all over in a hurry, it still played two both guys’ strengths and leaned into the typical All Out/Junretsu intensity. Also, Akiyama cranked the shit out of that front necklock finish. God bless. **3/4
Shunma Katsumata vs. Mizuki Watase
Watase wanting to prove himself to Akiyama Sensei and turning into an actually good wrestler is the best story coming out of this All Out/Junretsu feud. They packed the same fast-paced urgency as the last two matches, but the Watase performance was something else. He brought structure to the frenzy by working towards his killer Backdrop for the whole match, busted out a bunch of nutty offense (Missile dropkick to the floor!?!) and sold the desperation angle with amazing facial expressions. This will only make sense to die-hard early 2000’s NOAH fans, but I am getting strong MAKOTO HASHI VIBES from this storyline. And that’s a beautiful thing. ***
Tetsuya Endo, Daisuke Sasaki, T-Hawk & El Lindaman vs. HARASHIMA, Yukio Sakaguchi, Kazusada Higuchi & Yukio Naya
A fun multiman clusterfuck to end the show. Plenty of entertaining pairings on deck: T-Hawk/Higuchi giving you a taste of the chop-heavy KOD final that never was, Lindaman working the size-based comedy with Naya and Endo/Sasaki collaborating as Damnation-bros for perhaps the last time. The pace stayed brisk throughout and there were at least two big high spots that popped me (Linda’s tope con hilo and Endo very casually busting out a springboard 450). I was also very Sports Entertained by the post-match angle. Well-orchestrated turn with Sasaki’s perpetually shocked facial expression telling the whole story. ***
