Hideki Okatani vs. Toi Kojima
The usual solid dark match opener from these kids. Kojima keeps growing in confidence and chop-throwing ability. His big ‘’COME ON!’’ taunt was especially great and the immediate payoff of Okatani plastering him right in the mush was lovely as well. **1/4
Yusuke Okada vs. Yuya Koroku
This was Koroku’s debut match and this kid feels like someone you should keep an eye on. He spent some time at the Animal Hamaguchi Gym before hitting up the DDT dojo, which might explain his preternatural smoothness in the ring. Great instincts and picture-perfect rope-running already. To no one’s surprise, Okada was the ideal debut match opponent. He brought discipline and structure, making sure Koroku earned every scrap of offense. Solid stuff. **3/4
Chris Brookes, Saki Akai, Yuki Iino & Yukio Naya vs. Makoto Oishi, Akito, Kazuki Hirata & Keigo Nakamura
Better than it had any right to be! The lineup seemed completely random on paper but everyone stepped up and made this work. Even the mid-match intermission with Hirata using the Magnum TOKYO glasses to mind control Iino brought the laughs. Just a well laid-out multiman tag with minimal down time and plenty of creative thinking. Always happy to see the Quetzalcoatl finish from Saki. Also, yes, I had to look up the spelling for this thing. ***
Tetsuya Endo, Mad Paulie & Nobuhiro Shimatani vs. Georgeous Matsuno, Toru Owashi & Antonio Honda
You know what you’re getting with Georgeous Matsu-GOAT. I was laughing for most of this so I think it was a success? Very acceptable old man jokes, Endo corpsing all over and an extremely elaborate Anton fake injury spot. No complaints.
Naomi Yoshimura is BACK.
Yuki Ueno, Shunma Katsumata & MAO vs. Daisuke Sasaki, Soma Takao & Yuji Hino
Part comedy match, part preview tag for the upcoming Ueno/Soma Universal title match. The Sauna Club boys are good playground pals for Hino. You can tell both sides enjoy messing with each other and their interactions keep providing endless comedy gold. MAO shaking in his boots while attempting the Hino-style hands behind your back stance was high-level stuff, as was Shunma getting chopped off the apron for a minute. The Ueno/Soma-centric finale hinted at good things too. A lot of intensity and stiff forearm trading. ***
Kazusada Higuchi & Yukio Sakaguchi © vs. HARASHIMA & Yuji Okabayashi – KO-D Tag Team Titles
Maybe my expectations were out of control for this one? I mean, it was solid enough but never came close to reaching the world-ending tag scorcher level I had envisioned. Slightly disjointed at times – both in terms of layout and execution.
It took them a while to figure out what kind of match they wanted to have and they eventually settled on fusing two mini matches together (HARA vs. Yukio and Higuchi vs. Okabayashi) rather than telling a fully-fleshed out tag team story.
Don’t get me wrong, those pairings provided good content, but the cohesion of Eruption’s matches with Sauna Club and Nautilus was sorely missing. Still, a match featuring Okabayashi and Big Gooch ramming into each other with lariats can never be a complete disaster. It’s science. ***1/4
Jun Akiyama © vs. Danshoku Dino – KO-D Openweight Title
On the one hand, this had all of the problematic Dino shtick that you can think of. On the other hand, it had more heat and a better layout than the KO-D tag match!? There are a few ways to interpret this, but it mostly came down to Akiyama’s versatility as a worker and Dino’s status as a beloved DDT icon.
For such a Dumb match, they found interesting ways to keep Korakuen hooked. The babyface role kept shifting through the different sections – Underdog Dino getting outwrestled by grumpy Akiyama eventually led to Sex Monster Heel Dino busting out all of his tricks to push Uncle Jun to the limit.
They went overboard with the near-falls in the ending stretch, but the reactions were hard to deny. That first Danshoku Driver got one of the biggest pops I’ve heard in the pandemic era. Akiyama’s an absolute pro for playing along. Also, chef’s kiss to the Dick-Clutch Exploder. ***1/4
