Shuichiro Katsumura & Shu Sakurai vs. Minoru Fujita & Yasu Urano
Man, Fujita and Urano are some kind of team. Midlife Crisis Midnight Express with a 2001 CZW esthetic except nowhere near as good as that sounds. The heel shortcuts are there but their drunken sleazebag offense is so low-intensity that you just can’t get behind anything they do. Katsumura and Sakurai were a decent pair of babyfaces but didn’t exactly light the world on fire either. Sakurai is quite passionate about early ROH 3-way spots. Also, love Ganbare but why is the hard cam set up always so bad on these Korakuen shows? **1/4
Meoka Haruhi & HARUKAZE vs. Miyuki Takase & Ayumi Hayashi
Waaaaay better! There was some actual energy to this thing and the action flew really well. I wasn’t familiar with anyone but HARUKAZE and everyone made a good first impression. Working boots were firmly ON, hard dropkicks and foot stomps were thrown and the Actwres girls brought the snappy team work. As much as I hate the Ganbare camera, their wonky setup nicely emphasized the Oooooh’s from the crowd during the very cool ending stretch. Other highlights: HARUKAZE’s Tifa Lockhart cosplay and the absolute Mother of all Muta Locks from Ayumi Hayashi. Fun fun fun. ***
Asuka, Hagane Shinno & Shinichiro Tominaga © vs. Shigehiro Irie, Yumehito Imanari & Yuna Manase – GWC 6-Man Tag Team Titles
GanPro are officially neck and neck with DDT when it comes to high-quality 6-man tag matches. This one didn’t quite reach the heights of the Twitter-conquering GWC defense from February, but it followed the same kind of bulletproof pattern – Yuna replacing HARUKAZE as the babyface in peril who got the shit kicked out of her by both Shinno and Asuka.
On the other side of the hot tag, the pace got cranked up to 11 and everyone started bombarding us with an endless amount of cool shit. Asuka once again stole the show with her sassy acrobatics and razor-sharp kicks, but the rest of the crew wasn’t too far behind. Even guys like Tominaga and Imanari stepped up and contributed a good amount. Wild action and imaginative sequences all over. ***1/2
Keisuke Ishii & Shota vs. Yuki Ueno & Shunma Katsumata
The kind of wrestling match where you can both marvel at the flawess execution and nerd out about the relentless forward-thinking of all four guys. This is a crew that knows how to reward dorks who watch too much wrestling.
Stuff like Ishii/Ueno having a super indie standoff opening that DOESN’T end with a standoff but just flows into the next thing instead. Or Ueno absorbing the All Japan armdrag from his matches with Yusuke Okada. Or Ishii/Shunma putting together a ridiculously-compelling apron sequence in a world where apron sequences are overdone to death.
Ueno’s obviously on a WOTY-type roll, but the match peaked when Shunma and Ishii did their thing. Unreal chemistry between these two. All the big-time Shunma death bumps and rapid-fire counters that you NEED. One hell of a good time. ***3/4
Ikuto Hidaka vs. Koki Iwasaki
If you are into the Naohiro Hoshikawa school of leg selling philosophy, then here’s a match for you. I have no idea if raising up your leg during a bridge would actually cause you more or less pain then just doing the regular bridge, but it’s an undeniably cool visual and a fun callback to Hidaka’s ZERO-ONE matches with Hoshikawa himself.
Now that I’ve dropped all of my Deep Pure-O-Resew references, I will proceed to tell you that this match was GOOD. It took them a while to get to the core leg story and I’m not sure why they bothered with the whole neck detour, but these two are absolute pros and know how to turn borderline filler into watchable wrasslin’.
Most of all, ending the STOP THE HIDAKA run with an Iwasaki win is an extremely inspired choice. The guy is as underrated as it gets and his pinpoint striking brought this baby to another level. ***1/2
Takashi Sasaki vs. Ken Ohka – Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match
All the best death matches embrace simple wrestling themes at their core and you won’t find a better example than this one. Local hero/journeyman shlob Ken Ohka risking life and limb against hardcore veteran and straight-up dangerous dude Takashi Sasaki is a story anyone could get behind.
Despite all the nasty light tube shots and assorted murder bumps, they told that story in the most basic-ass pro-wrestling way. A beloved babyface trying (and failing) to overcome a monster heel in dramatic fashion. This sounds easy enough but this shit is not easy to pull off in the current COVID clap-only climate.
Having the entire Ganbare gang at ring-side added to the magic in a big way, especially since Sasaki was smart enough to play off of them and somehow turned himself into an even bigger dick. Meanwhile, Mr. Bad Communication stayed within his limits and played his part to perfection. He mostly got his ass handed to him, bled to death, sold a lot and brought the fight when he needed to.
They broke a shit-ton of light tubes and carved each other up real good, but the image that’ll forever stick with me is Ohka kicking out at 1 after that Superplex of pure death through the chairs. Your favorite cowboy rocker spitting in the face of adversity. For his Ganbare boys and girls. ****1/2
