Quiet Storm & Ryuki Honda vs. Jun Saito & Rei Saito
I did not expect to see Quiet Storm kick off this show. The man’s been off my radar ever since he bailed from NOAH and I assume he ended up on this card because of COVID wiping out half of All Japan’s roster. Let me tell you, this pint-sized bruiser is still adept at meat and potatoes wrasslin’ and he played a good veteran wall for the Saito brothers. Rei looked kinda lost, but Jun again gave off future star vibes and impressed with his sumo technique. **
Francesco Akira, Hikaru Sato & Andy Wu vs. Atsuki Aoyagi, Yasutaka Oosera & Shoichi Uchida
AJPW Jr. Heavyweight champion Francesco Akira is a beautiful thing. As shown by him bossing his partners around (‘’I’M CHAMPION NOW!’’) and using the ending to get over his crossface as a secondary finisher – this kid has a solid understanding of the mysteries of pro-wrestling. Other than Osaka local boy Uchida being completely unable to wrestle professionally, the rest of the match was a fun time too. ANDREW WU did his ninja spots and I guess Atsuki was a bit of a ninja too. Always happy to see Michinoku Pro’s Oosera show up anywhere. Blessed Osaka x All Japan random sleaze content. ***
Yoshitatsu & Takao Omori vs. Izanagi & UTAMARO
Here’s a match that became oddly watchable thanks to Yoshitatsu’s visceral hatred for Purple Haze schlob UTAMARO. Tatsu picked up a win over a legit boxer on the big Ota Ward show, so now he has the right to shoot on anyone. That’s how this business works. Also, there was a bunch of decent wrestling near the end. Enough decent wrestling to make me confidently drop two and a quarter stars on this bad boy. Respect it. **1/4
Zeus vs. Koji Iwamoto
A promising first step in Iwamoto’s new journey for openweight acceptation. These two are almost the same size but Zeus is MUCH MORE JACKED (baby) so they had a crystal-clear heavyweight/junior match – Iwamato having to work for everything and wisely using leg attack shortcuts to get in the driver’s seat. Zeus denying comebacks left and right and just overwhelming Iwamoto with his power advantage added to the tasty David/Goliath dynamic. Truth be told, Iwamoto doesn’t have the biggest underdog personality, but his mechanics are so tight that it almost doesn’t matter. He knows exactly when to get himself over and when to go down. They worked a couple of sweet near-falls off the Iwamoto German suplex and Japanese leg roll clutch, but let’s not forget that this is OSAKA – a place where hometown legend Zeus will fuck you up. AMEN. ***1/2
Jake Lee, Yusuke Kodama & Hokuto Omori vs. Suwama, Shotaro Ashino & Dan Tamura
Man, there’s some depth to this Jake/Ashino/Big Wama love triangle now. The Wamster’s back from the COVID sidelines, so Jake obviously wants a piece of his chunky ass. But first he has to get past Metallica enthusiast Ashino and this man has been dying to get back at the Dark Gentleman Jake Lee for ages. Each side of the story was sold really well here, with Ashino putting in a monster babyface performance only for Jake to ignore him in order to scrap with the former Triple Crown champ. Add a bit of Dan Tamura in peril and some heavy-duty suplex destruction from WAMASHINO and you end up with a bunch of fineeee upper-midcard wrasslin’. ***
As a bonus, here’s my top 5 best potential names for Ashino and Suwama’s new tag team:
1- Throws Before Hoes
2- Suplex Duplex
3- Tossin’ N Turnin’
4- Ankle Lockdown
5- Last Ride The Lightning
Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi © vs. Koji Doi & Kuma Arashi – AJPW Tag Team Titles
This took a while to get going, but it got to a pretty good place once it did. The structure started making sense when the heels began targeting Yuma and everything flew smoothly from there. I’ve seen a lot of people up in harms about the Total Eclipse interference, but I thought it worked well considering how loud the fans were for the payoff (Kento booting Hokuto’s face off + Atsuki clearing out the villains with a Quebrada). Like most of this Nextream tag reign, the ending stretch was very Yuma-centric and it led to some high-quality moments between him and Kuma. Lots of twists and turns, 2.9999 kickouts and an extremely clever Endgame counter for Arashi’s flippy Powerbomb thing. I was initially hoping for a DoiKuma win, but the layout was tight enough to turn the Nextream victory into another feel good moment. A fun time at the matches. ***1/2
