Seiki Yoshioka, Hajime Ohara & YO-HEY vs. Kinya Okada, Kai Fujimura & Yasutaka Yano
My one nitpick with this recent batch of Full Throttle/Young Boyz matches is that everything comes too easy to the youngsters. Having Ohara on deck for this one helped fix the situation and made the match a lot more satisfying. Fujimura got slapped around, Yano needed multiple tries to hit body slams. These little things add up and Ohara is the right guy to instill this type of hierarchy-based logic. Good energy and fun comebacks from the kids. **3/4
Mohammed Yone & Shuhei Taniguchi vs. Akitoshi Saito & Masao Inoue
Holy shit. Taniguchi going full disco and officially forming FUNKY EXPRESS with recent on and off partner Yone is a wild twist. Finally, a new tag team to challenge Dark Agents for NOAH midcard supremacy. Look, even by Masao World Standards, the match wasn’t good, but there was a certain charm to seeing Taniguchi so happy after years of constant brooding. *3/4
Kotaro Suzuki, Ikuto Hidaka & NOSAWA Rongai vs. Haoh, Nioh & Tadasuke
The biggest takeaway from this one is that we clearly need a Hidaka/Haoh singles match in our lives. Two crafty pint-sized dudes with unsurprisingly fun chemistry. The rest of the match was the usual very competent but sightly inessential wrestling you’d expect from this crew. Dug how they worked Tadasuke’s lariat house cleaning into Arn Anderson DDT spot. **1/2
Kazuyuki Fujita vs. Manabu Soya
In terms of midcard hoss-fights, I’d rank this behind the recent Hino/Iino (DDT) and Ishikawa/Kuma (AJPW) matches. They had the type of match you wanted them to have (grunting, lariats) but didn’t really go beyond the basic beef formula. When things started cooking, the match just ended. Not with a sudden shocker finish – more of a ‘’Uuuh that’s it?’’ conclusion. I don’t know. There’s value in keeping Kazzer around, but this didn’t make a great case for him as the next National title challenger. **3/4
Yoshinari Ogawa, HAYATA & Yuya Susumu vs. Daisuke Harada, Atsushi Kotoge & Junta Miyawaki
NOAH should take a page from current AJPW and limit all non-title, no-stakes midcard matches to 10 minutes or less. The work here was rock-solid but there was literally no reason for it to go 19 minutes. With the Harada/Miyawaki vs. Stinger junior tag title match coming up, they gave a lot of the spotlight to Junta and the kid did well. Good babyface on fire opening, good babyface in peril middle and good babyface comes close to victory finish. All the same story beats could’ve been accomplished in 10 minutes though. **3/4
Kenoh © vs. Kendo Kashin – GHC National Title
This Kenoh/Kashin comedy feud might’ve been worth it just for the legit hilarious video package that kicked this off. The match was about what you’d expect: harmless non-sense but also kind of a waste of time. Kashin’s cheating shooter shtick is tired as hell at this point. I’ll give ‘em points for the Eddie Guerrero-esque boot removal spot and the hurty PFS to the back, but that’s about it. **1/4
Keiji Muto, Masato Tanaka & Naomichi Marufuji vs. Kaiyo Kiyomiya, Go Shiozaki & Yoshiki Inamura
The very definition of a mixed bag. I mean, parts of this definitely worked. Anything involving Masato Tanaka was rad as hell and made a good case for him getting booked into more than random M’s Alliance 6-man tags. The segment between him and Go looked like actual World title program material, which made all of the Muto sections feel even weaker just by simple comparison.
You’ve probably seen the blown handspring elbow GIF by now. This was not a good night for Grandpa Muto. The man could barely keep up with Kaito in the opening and looked on the verge of cardiac arrest during the Figure 4 on Inamura. Getting worried about the upcoming GHC title match. **3/4
Takashi Sugiura & Kazushi Sakuraba © vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima & Masa Kitamiya – GHC Tag Team Titles
An appropriately physical conclusion to the surprisingly fun Sugiura-Gun GHC tag title reign. Instead of laying out the match around one main plotline, they divided most of the action in clear-cut sections between Saku/Katsu and Sugiura/Masa. So, you had your shoot-flavored pleasantries on one side and the beefier slug-fest content on the other. Fun for the whole family.
Big Daddy Sugi and Masa have always had great chemistry, but the work between Katsu and Saku was the real revelation here. Nakajima went harder on Sakuraba than any of his previous NOAH opponents and it made for some deliciously-tense interactions. Chef’s kiss to the the bitchy fighting during holds, Katsu bringing back those evil stomach kicksand that nasty palm strike into double kick KO sequence.
The bloody shoot headbutt finish was undeniably awesome, but they way they got there took me out of the action a bit. Adding a limbwork subplot 25 minutes into a match is a pretty big gamble. It certainly added gravitas to Masa’s Prison lock, but going for that apron sequence so late didn’t feel super organic. Minor bitching aside, I had a real good time and am 100% on board for this Agression title reign. ***3/4
