Yuma Aoyagi vs. Kuma Arashi – Champion Carnival (Block B)
The peak Champion Carnival undercard experience. Two wrasslers with clear-cut characters and complementary styles doing their thing under the watchful eye of a single house show camera. One of them is a burly man-beast who works on people’s ribs for a living. The other, a lovable babyface scamp who will roll you up when you’re not looking. Again, Koomz’ offense hit like a ton of bricks and Yuma held on for dear life. Deeply enjoyable three and a quarter star wrestling. ***1/4
Jake Lee vs. Ryuki Honda – Champion Carnival (Block A)
Total Eclipse working out their internal beef made for a feisty little number. Honda’s lack of offense is still somewhat problematic, but him going straight for the eye injury was a nice touch. Jake sold big for him and rounded up the match with his Highly Controversial mix of arm work and Joker theatrics. Judging by the post-match show of respect, this feud might be already wrapped. Let’s run it back when Honda figures out how to do like 3 more moves. ***1/4
Shigehiro Irie vs T-Hawk – Champion Carnival (Block A)
Remember that Big Shuj/Ryouji Sai draw from the 2018 CC? This was not that. While we did get some mandatory headlock-based time filling, the action stayed pretty intense all the way through. Both T-Hawk and Irie are usually top-tier Short Match Guys, so watching them try their hand at a different format was half the fun here.
They did what most reasonable men would do when imposed with 30 minutes of wrestling: work some limbs. T-Hawk had a fresh, galaxy-brained approach to this, going after both the leg and arm, THUS banking in all the star ratings. Smart dude.
Things got emotional in the second half, T-Hawk pushing the ‘STRONGHEARTS COLLIDE’ angle to the forefront – screaming ‘’ANIKI’’ (Big brother) at Irie and igniting some nasty firefights. I’m still thinking about the way they were able to pay off all of their subplots in the frenzied final seconds – the arm pain preventing Irie from choking a human being. Great wrestling. ****
Kento Miyahara vs. Yoshitatsu – Champion Carnival (Block B)
Not on the level of their 2019 classic, but much better than their last singles meeting in 2020. They had a straight-to-the-point, Very Good Kento Match – Tatsu continuing his string of solid Carnival performances and raking in the WELL-DESERVED Twitter adulation. The pace was brisk, the strikes landed hard and Kento actually got to hit his freakin’ Northern Lights suplex. Rare sighting. I’d have gladly taken a few more minutes of this. ***1/4
