YO-HEY, Daiki Inaba & Yasutaka Yano vs. Tadasuke, Haoh & Nioh
A fun opener and timely progress update on young Yasutaka Yano. This little blue twerp already does a lot of things so well. Here he held his own in agile chain wrestling back and forths with Haoh, brought the fighting spirit against Tadasuke and called to the crowd with the confidence of a seasoned vet. The lad might be the savior that NOAH’s junior division badly needs. We’re in single camera mode for this show, yet the super receptive Osaka crowd makes everything quite pleasant. **1/2
Masa Kitamiya & Manabu Soya vs. Mohammed Yone & Shuhei Taniguchi
The beefier inhabitants of the NOAH undercard just doing their thing. Nothing groundbreaking, but everyone supplied enough anger and meat to keep me and the good people of Osaka engaged all the way through. Soya’s really good at working tense pull apart-type situations. His early scrap with Taniguchi set the tone for the match nicely, almost signaling in bright neon lights that we were transitioning from junior opener to hoss-fight territory. **3/4
Katsuhiko Nakajima vs. Junta Miyawaki
Have you ever witnessed a murder? Now’s your chance! Nakajima inherited all of the anti-youth venom of his various mentors (the mid-2000’s extended Kensuke Family featured some of the grumpiest hardasses of all time) and I’m starting to think that Destroyer of Young Men might be his one true calling. Some of the shots in this thing were terrifying enough to send the clap-only crowd into loud gasps of horror, so you know it was good stuff.
Junta fought with all of his heart and I appreciated both his willingness to end his own life on that tope con hilo and the sweet chickenwing armlock transition from the Fisherman’s Buster kickout. The slap exchange that set in motion his inevitable demise was a god damn work of art. Orange Riot Junta staring down Satan and immediately paying the price. Loved it. ***1/2
Daisuke Harada & Atsushi Kotoge vs. Seiki Yoshioka & YO-HEY
Double Duty YO-HEY jumped in to save the day after Hajime Ohara was forced to miss the show due to a COVID scare. The match wasn’t on the level of the underrated scorcher these guys had for the junior tag straps last year, but it was still preeeeeetty good. Harada and Yoshioka hyped up their upcoming title match with a lot of snappy, mouth-watering sequences. Great chemistry between these guys. Both seem to be in a race to come up with the wackiest Go 2 Sleep variation and I have to respect that sort of commitment. Meanwhile, you can always count on YO-HEY and Kotoge to bring the energy and they did that in spades here. ***1/4
Yoshinari Ogawa, HAYATA & Yuya Susumu vs. Kotaro Suzuki, Ikuto Hidaka & NOSAWA Rongai
All of this was completely fine except for a big chunk in the middle where no one seemed to have a clue what to do and people just started eye gouging each other for 5 minutes. I still don’t know what the office sees in Susumu and why they brought him in Stinger? Nothing really stands out about him? The opening between Ogawa/Kotaro and bits and pieces of Hidaka/HAYATA gave me hope for the Budokan junior tag title match though. **1/4
Kenoh vs. Kazunari Murakami – GHC National Title
Kind of a Murakami parody match, but there were a few fun moments. The guy’s greatest asset never was the realism of his evil shooter shtick, but his wild facial expressions and ability to work a crowd. He’s always been a total Worker and his new half-assed Yakuza getup is fitting of his conman shtick. Convincingly putting him out of his misery was a good look for the National champ. Like the Sakuraba defense, the match wasn’t amazing, but I like the idea of Red Goblin Prince Kenoh running through these old timey shooters. **3/4
Go Shiozaki, Takashi Sugiura & Naomichi Marufuji vs. Kaito Kiyomiya, Yoshiki Inamura & Kinya Okada
At least NOAH has the decency to crank up the intensity and stiffness in their throwaway 6-man tag main events, which automatically makes them better than most throwaway 6-man tag main events from other companies. This one had a fun old guard/new guard theme, with the youngsters aggressively trying to make an impression on their seniors. It was a rare main event showcase for Thunderbutt Okada and the kid made the most of it. While he’s not yet at Kaito or Inamura levels of confidence, he threw some hard shots at cranky boomers and worked a solid finish with the GHC champ. ***
