Haoh vs. Seiki Yoshioka
I’m a fan of these two, but at certain points they seemed on different pages of two very different books. Luckily, both were sharp enough to recover quickly from all the Irish-whip miscommunications and had themselves a decent opener. We got an appropriate amount of past-paced trickery and the usual mind-blowing scissors kick action from Yoshioka. Hoping for a tighter rematch down the road. **1/2
Kaito Kiyomiya, Yoshiki Inamura, Junta Miyawaki & Kinya Okada vs. Kenoh, Manabu Soya, Nioh & Tadasuke
The bloodbath with NOSAWA seems to have a lit a proper blaze under Kaito. Him and Kenoh went after each other like a pair of wild dogs and it was pretty great. Hopefully this sets the kid right back on the main event track and isn’t just some bullshit setup for a wonky Great Kaito vs. Great Muta program. Inamura was the other highlight of this very fine match – the big boy once again proving his status as wrestling’s ultimate House Cleaner. You’ve never seen a house this clean. ***
Yoshinari Ogawa & HAYATA © vs. Daisuke Harada & Hajime Ohara – GHC Jr. Tag Team Titles
These Stinger matches are the kale salad of wrestling. Undeniably good for your health, but always a chore to get through. As always, I can’t really argue with any of the finer points. The structure made sense, people played their roles well and everything flew logically. But do we really need 28 minutes to establish that Harada is good at selling the leg? Nevertheless, Harada sold, fought back and babyfaced like a champ. I think Ohara might be his best partner yet? I know Harada/Kotoge have all the history, but Ohara’s passionate run-ins and always-clever backbreaking added a great dynamic here. The Lads on commentary also did a great job adding some seasoning to this bowl of fresh vegetables. Bless them and bless the enthusiastic Korakuen crowd who brought some proper clapping power for ending stretch. ***1/2
Katsuhiko Nakajima & Masa Kitamiya © vs. Mohammed Yone & Shuhei Taniguchi – GHC Tag Team Titles
A god damn miracle if I ever saw one. This had ‘filler defense’ written all over it, yet Funky Express ended up bringing more fight than anyone expected. They wisely structured the match to get the most babyface heat possible on the disco warriors – Yone and Tani both taking a complete shit-kicking for 75% of the run time. And my god did it pay off when they got to the comeback. Katsu accidently murdering Masa with the high kick and then immediately eating the mother of all half-helson suplexes from Taniguchi had to be one of the best tag team sequences I’ve seen all year! Then Yone brought things to another level by going Full BattlARTS on Nakajima’s ass for the finale and it all ruled. I still can’t believe this great Agression tag run is getting cut short by NOSAWA’s bad idea of the week. ***3/4
Atsushi Kotoge © vs. Yuya Susumu – GHC Jr. Heavyweight Title
I’ve run out of ways to describe how little I care about poor Yuya Susumu. That being said, this was probably one of his better outings. Once they got past the dry-as-fuck chinlock action of the first half, there was some fun to be had. Susumu brought more emotion to the table than I’ve ever seen from him and Kotoge did allright as the fighting champion. They pulled off some pretty fancy counters in the back end of the match, including a Tornado clutch into crossface combo from Susumu that had me picking my jaw from off the floor. Solid wrestling was solid. ***1/4
Takashi Sugiura © vs. Kazushi Sakuraba – GHC National Title
Your two coolest uncles playing MMA pranks on each other. I dug it! They had a match very much in line with my 2021 Saku expectations – half fucking around, half genius technique. Big Daddy Sugi trying not to crack up at his buddy’s weirdo antics was a good time, but they also worked in some legitimately compelling wrestling bits. Sakuraba busted out a truckload of galaxy-brained submissions and Sugiura sold all of them like instant death. They eventually stumbled on a bit of a grappling vs. power theme, Sugiura overcoming Saku’s technical know-how by dumping him with good ol’ wrasslin’ moves. I liked the logic behind the flash pin finish, but it probably would’ve worked better if Saku put some actual effort into blocking that Olympic slam. ***1/2
Keiji Muto & Masato Tanaka vs. Naomichi Marufuji & Masakatsu Funaki
What a weird match to close out a Mitsuharu Misawa memorial show. The upcoming Maru/Muto title match fills me with nothing but dread and this didn’t do much to alleviate my concerns. 10-minutes of dry-as-dirt wristlock naps before anything of note happened here. Basically, a test run for the structure of the Cyberfight Festival match. They did sneak in some good stuff in the second half of the match, what with the Muto Emerald Frosion, Tiger King into dragon screw counter and fun bits of ass-kicking between Tanaka/Funaki. But yeah, this felt like the wrong main event for this show and didn’t spark much interest as a preview tag. **3/4
