YO-HEY & Seiki Yoshioka vs. Kai Fujimura & Yasutaka Yano
A solid opener where the two rookies looked sharp, although I kept wondering why Full Throttle were being so cooperative with them. The experience gap between the two teams was barely noticeable, which was a bit weird. Perhaps I am a grumpy asshole, but I much prefer when vets make young boys work for everything. It’s all in the struggle, man. **1/4
Mohammed Yone & Shuhei Taniguchi vs. Yoshiki Inamura & Kinya Okada
Bit of a mixed bag here. Parts of the match had the no non-sense physicality I’m looking for in my NOAH undercards, other parts were just dry as all hell. Thunderbutt Okada has the look of someone with star potential but I wish he’d start showing some personality already. Dug Yone and Taniguchi just mauling him with forearms and headbutts near the finish. **
Atsushi Kotoge, Daiki Inaba & Junta Miyawaki vs. Kotaro Suzuki, Ikuto Hidaka & NOSAWA Rongai
Peak Fire Pro random match booking right there. Everyone seemed energized by Hidaka’s presence and delivered quality midcard junior action. Even NOSAWA went beyond his usual meth addict comedy heeling and broke out some of his old lucha submissions for the occasion. Gotta respect it. Junta and his loose kneepads looked like a million bucks working the ending stretch. ***
Yoshinari Ogawa, HAYATA & Yuya Susumu vs. Tadasuke, Haoh & Nioh
This felt kinda long despite only going 13 minutes, but the layout made sense and there were enough good ideas to keep me hooked. A hot opening gave way to a long Haoh-in-peril segment with Stinger attempting to take out his arm. The top notch selling from the pint-sized Kongoian and the usual ruthlessness from Ogawa made it all gel nicely. My level of interest for the upcoming GHC junior tag title match has gone up slightly. ***
Daisuke Harada vs. Hajime Ohara – GHC Jr. Heavyweight Title
These guys had a proper banger last year in the pre-COVID universe. This wasn’t as focused, but it did share a few similar strengths. Ohara has some of the coolest offense in all of the company – watching him tie people into pretzels and show off his endless backbreaker knowledge never gets old. He and Harada have high-level chemistry and the funky counters of their previous match were still on point in this one.
The story was a bit muddier this time around though, with Ohara occasionally targeting the back but never fully making it a mission statement. Certain sections of the match felt a bit ‘’your move, my move’’, although the movez looked great so I can’t complaint too much. Popped big time for Ohara’s angry-slappy-outburst and the champ’s brutal lariat response. Would’ve taken more of this type of violence and a few less kickouts. ***1/2
Go Shiozaki, Takashi Sugiura, Naomichi Marufuji & Kaito Kiyomiya vs. Kenoh, Katsuhiko Nakajima, Masa Kitamiya & Manabu Soya
Not sure why this had to go so long, but at least half of the match was pretty darn good. As it’s often the case with these NOAH tags, the Go/Katsu sequence signaled the transition from ‘’pleasant house show filler’’ to ‘’actually compelling pro-wrestling’’. The usual great stuff from the AXIZ divorcés, who even used this opportunity to re-do the botched top-rope rana spot from their 2020 title match. Bless their hearts. Lots of hugely-satisfying sequences in that second half of the match, namely Kenoh/Kaito integrating the Ibushi mid-air stomp counter in the middle of their kneebreaker reversals and Marufuji busting out a god damn flying Ko-oh off a crouching Kiyomiya. Good times. ***1/2
