Hideki Okatani vs. Toi Kojima
Young boy opening match wrestling done very well. I’d say this was probably Kojima’s best performance yet and the closest he’s ever come to picking up his first win. He hung right in there with Okatani and came off as his equal. Shoutout to the springboard leg lariat off the 2nd-rope. That thing looked like a million bucks. I also should mention that Okatani has the best Northern Lights suplex setup in wrestling. The ability to turn a simple move into a big deal is quickly becoming a lost art and this kid gets it. **3/4
Sanshiro Takagi & Yukio Naya vs. Danshoku Dino & Super Sasadango Machine vs. Kazuki Hirata & Toru Owashi vs. Akito & Keigo Nakamura – 4-Way Tag Match
My god. Equal parts sad and kind of amazing that they wrestled this match in front of no one. It was a lot of dumb shit, but to their credit, they got creative with the dumb shit. The jet bike charge into the chair pyramid was tremendous and the reverse over-the-top stipulation brought some laughs.
Tetsuya Endo, Soma Takao & Mad Paulie vs. Kazusada Higuchi, Saki Akai & Yuki Iino
Not much to write home about. The haka elbow remains Problematic, with or without a crowd. Also, people wrestled. The highlight was Endo nearly dying off a springboard tope con hilo but somehow regaining his balance at the last second. Real super hero shit. **
Yukio Sakaguchi vs. Yusuke Okada
5 minutes of pure, unfiltered piss and vinegar. Drink it in, baby. Okada truly has balls of steel for coming at Sakaguchi like he did. He’s been throwing his bad temper at the DDT roster ever since January, but this was the first time he faced an actually-dangerous dude that could put him in his place. At various points throughout the match, I was just expecting Yukio to start shooting on the guy. You can’t top this kind of tension. They beat the fuck out of each other with forearms, kicks and headbutts – it all ruled. It felt more like a UWF burner than a straight pro-wrestling match and I was shocked by how well Okada adapted to this kind of setting. Unsurprisingly, the blink-and-you’ll-miss it slug-fest is Sakaguchi’s sweet spot. Without Higuchi at his side, longer matches can expose some of his weaknesses. This one made him look like the baddest dude on Earth. ***3/4
HARASHIMA & Naomi Yoshimura vs. Yuki Ueno & MAO
Listen to me, wrestlers and bookers. I know you’re all reading Captain Lou’s review. This is how you do a return match. After being M.I.A. for the past 6 months, Yoshimura instantly feels like an important piece of the puzzle thanks to this hard-fought and well-thought-out piece of wrasslin’ business. They got over all of his big boi strengths in the opening, turned him into a babyface in peril for extra sympathy points and then setup a potential Universal title program by having the former Nautilus buddies just rip into each other for the finish. Air-tight layout and quality pro-wrestling that made you excited about the future, which is how it always should be. To their credit, both HARASHIMA and MAO brought a ton of creativity to the table, but Yoshimura taking Ueno’s head off with a lariat is the image that’ll stick with me for a while. ***3/4
Jun Akiyama & Makoto Oishi vs. Chris Brookes & Antonio Honda – Ultimate Tag League
Obviously not on the level of the last two matches, but also not the clusterfuck you were anticipating. Anton’s shtick was integrated fairly painlessly and Akiyama bouncing off his gags was actually kind of fun. They even got some of that sweet empty arena heat by building off a very cerebral limb work subplot. The limbwork subplot I am referring to is Junretsu ruthlessly working over Honda’s balls. Thank you. More seriously, Brookes popping in all the time to save Anton’s ass made for a neat structure. How I wish we could’ve gotten a fully-vocal Korakuen pop for the wacky upset finish. ***
Konosuke Takeshita & Shunma Katsumata vs. Daisuke Sasaki & Yuji Hino – Ultimate Tag League
Running 30-minute draws in front of no one is not something I would recommend doing. However, if you’re going to do it, this match would be a pretty good template to follow.
All four bros put in a serious shift and made sure the citizens of the WRESTLE UNIVERSE got their money’s worth. Most importantly, the layout was so well put-together that you barely felt the time. Everything flew logically into the next thing: Sauna Club targeting Sasaki’s back only for Damnation to turn things around with their bad boy shtick, leading right into Shunma In Peril Southern tag drama and eventual post-hot tag escalating BOMB THROWAGE.
Absolutely Peak Wrestling exchanges between Hino and Take (holy fucking fuck @ that deadlift MAD MAX assisted-Brainbuster), FMW-style chair fights between Sasaki/Shunma, Hino freakin’ Powerbombing Shunma on top of Takeshita to break a fall. These are things that happened in this match and it was wild. Super entertaining empty arena effort that managed to stay exciting for an unnecessarily-long amount of the time. Big props. ****
