Let us say goodbye to All Out. A swell group of friends that also happened to be pretty decent at wrestling.
Yuji Hino vs. Yuki Iino
Thank you Yuji Hino for not putting up with those first few haka elbow attempts. The match was in the same vein as the one they had in Nagoya last month: comedy at first and then meaty hoss fighting. I’ve said it a million times before, but Iino does really well at straight-up beefy wrestling and he’d gain a lot from toning down his haka non-sense. I had the impression he put up more of a fight against Hino in their first meeting, so there was a weird sense of regression here. If this is part of a genius long-term story where Iino realizes he needs to be Less Dumb in order to progress, then I say BRAVO. If this is not that, then uuuuh… ***
Konosuke Takeshita, Shunma Katsumata & Akito vs. Yuki Ueno, Chris Brookes & Shota
Watch your back, Dragon Gate! The quality of DDT’s multiman tag matches has been insane in 2021. This one had a similar cast as the rocking 8-man tag from the January Korakuen, but the action peaked even higher. Everyone embraced the lucha-style no tag rules and had themselves an all out (pun intended) sprinty banger. The one big advantage these matches have over their DG counterpart is that the babyface in peril section doesn’t grind everything to a halt.
Sure, All Out isolated Shota for a few minutes here, but it never felt like the pause button had been pushed. There was a full-on dive train, Lancashire-style trickery between Shota/Akito and all sorts of well-orchestrated counters. The Takeshita/Ueno section had serious Ace vs. Future Ace energy and I completely lost my shit for Take wrist-clutch Fisherman BUSTERING his way out of the WR. Total fucking blast. ***3/4
HARASHIMA & Yasu Urano vs. Tetsuya Endo & Soma Takao vs. Antonio Honda & Trans-Am Hiroshi – 3-Way Tag Match
I had to check out the always helpful Dramatic DDT blog to make sense of this one. The match kept getting rebooked from 3-way tag to Smile Squash vs. Happy Motel 6-man throwback and there was a lot of confusion to be had. You probably had an easier time following than me if you know your expired DDT factions. Hiroshi forming YOGAMNATION with Endo and Soma in the final stretch did procure some laughs. *1/2
Konosuke Takeshita & Akito vs. Shunma Katsumata & Akito
A+ for effort but the layout was way too convoluted for this to work as a near 30-minute-long tag team epic. They might’ve pulled it off with anyone else in Iino’s place, but his presence alone meant the momentum kept getting derailed non-stop by his bullshit tropes. A real shame, because the tough love dynamic between Take and Shunma hinted at a stone cold classic.
Both guys were out there to kill each other and it was a thing of beauty. Takeshita no-selling Shunma’s strikes, the impromptu slap-fight and assorted nutcase bumps from Katsumata were all big time highlights. Hell, Take managed to pull some good stuff out of Iino too (THAT LAST RIDE!), but the whole structure collapsed when they went into that goofy 4-way forearm duel. Constant tug of war between high quality moments and very regrettable decisions. ***
