Yuki Iino & Yuya Koroku vs. Yukio Naya & Hideki Okatani
The dark match squad delivering the very acceptable dark match wrestling that you need. Young boyz Okatani and Koroku showed some seriously promising chemistry – first with the SCIENTIFICALLY-ACCURATE chain wrestling and then with the clever late-match counters. Keep an eye on those two. **1/4
Battle Royal – Iron Man Heavy Metal Title
Where can I get my hands on the Mad Paulie Potion?
Danshoku Dino vs. Yusuke Okada
Not even Okada can salvage something out of Dino when he’s in full rape mode. They worked in some wacky interference bits with one of Okada’s restaurant-owning pals and it was all very bad. No disrespect to Big Daddy, as his food looks tremendous. But yeah, this was mostly cringe city. *1/2
Yuki Ueno & Shunma Katsumata vs. Soma Takao & Nobuhiro Shimatani vs. Akito & Naomi Yoshimura – 3-Way Tag Match
A well-worked piece of 3-way business where everyone went really fast and got themselves over efficiently. The highlight of the match was Ueno tricking Yoshimura back into Nautilus cooperation only to use one of their old double teams against him. Dastardly. **3/4
Tetsuya Endo vs. Kazusada Higuchi – King of DDT (Round 2)
These two clashed in the semi-finals of last year’s tournament and this felt like a logical expansion of that last meeting. Again, power vs. speed was the theme of the day, but this time around they pushed the familiarity card to the forefront and cranked up the counters to great effect. Endo had some particularly inspired reversals for the brain claw, what with the clever armdrag escapes and assorted Yurikamome setups. Meanwhile, the Gooch was all brute force: catching Endo’s high spots in mid-air and popping the crowd with raw destruction. While their last match was all about urgency and self preservation, they got more time to put together a proper ending stretch here and it led to some HOT POUNCING ACTION. ***1/2
Konosuke Takeshita vs. MAO – King of DDT (Round 2)
The kind of match that could only work in DDT. Essentially, they told the story of Big Ace Takeshita stonewalling MAO’s goofball antics and forcing him to get serious. Like a metaphor for DDT itself, it walked the line between brilliant and a bit awkward. A lot of MAO’s bullshit kept breaking up the rhythm of the match, but the story beats made sense and the high workrate content guaranteed a good time. To be clear, there was a lot of cool shit. Takeshita tried to upstage his Sauna Club buddy by showing he could fly as well as him, which pushed MAO to enter a superior state of FLIPPERY. They also worked a ton of wild counters around Take’s Reverse Piledriver and got big clapping heat for MAO’s ending stretch kickouts. I’d have taken less of the ‘’Look over there!’’ punching bits, but the stuff that landed was a hit. ***1/2
Jun Akiyama vs. Daisuke Sasaki – King of DDT (Round 2)
This was all worth it for Sasaki’s face after the match. I mean, for a 4-minute Gedo-ISM romp, it was actually kind of fun. Uncle Jun outwitting the first Mad Paulie interference spot + the Sasaki comeback rana that was immediately countered with a nonchalant Powerbomb = all great stuff. Pretty sure the result here means Akiyama is definitely losing the KO-D to whoever wins this tournament, because I just can’t picture a full-on rematch between these two for the belt. **1/4
HARASHIMA vs. Yuji Hino – King of DDT (Round 2)
The real stroke of genius of this match was the complete inversion of Hino’s classic monster antagonist character. HARASHIMA going after the leg turned the chunky chopper into the World’s largest babyface underdog and the gamble paid off in a big way. Thanks to some compelling selling from the big man and HARASHIMA’s brooding mean streak, Hino became a sympathetic figure for the first time in ages. All of it peaking with the mandatory no guard spot, which felt like the ultimate babyface sacrifice when the Harasheemster started unloading with those low kicks.
I truly wish they hadn’t gone into that second no guard sequence, as it just dragged for too long and undid some of the Hino babyfacing they had built up. That being said, everything that came afterwards was pure main event gold. Hino regained his Kaiju glory with some king-sized comebacks (holy shit @ the Somato countered into overhead suplex) and HARASHIMA came off a lot more dangerous than he did in the Akiyama match. Plus, a Fucking Bomb for the ages – complete with genius dead eyed sell-job from the old Ace. A whole lot of great wrestling. ****
