(Written by jom)
Shota vs. Takeshi Tengu
Takeshi Tengu is a Hanzo Nakajima trainee who primarily works for Nakajima's Wrestle Gate promotion (the same place Yuya Susumu and Seiki Yoshioka got started). That's really all I can say about him, as I've never seen one of his matches before this. Shota I've seen much of though, as he's currently a personal favorite in the 2022 wrestling landscape. He does a ton of Eddie Guerrero type stuff, has some great worked punches, and his team with Kenichiro Arai as Hattoshite Good is so much fun to watch. However, the Shota here is very different from the Shota many of you probably have seen before. This is him not even a year into pro wrestling, being a trainee from the U-FILE CAMP pro wrestling class and making his debut in April of 2008.
The match itself was pretty solid overall. Tengu did some alright juniors stuff, hitting a good one-handed bulldog and a pretty cool cartwheel into flashing elbow. Shota meanwhile was fine, he had some nice grappling towards the start, he threw a nice enzuigiri, and the highlight of the match was definitely this beautiful german suplex he hit near the end:
And that's really about all that happened. This was short (about 5 minutes long), worked in a really basic way, and ended when it probably should've. Not really worth seeking out or anything like that, but overall this was fine and it was cool seeing Shota so early into his career.
Rating: C+
Shoichi Uchida vs. Yukihiro Abe
Shoichi Uchida is a guy I've seen a good bit since he tends to hang around the Kansai scene. He's been a mixed bag so far with some of his matches being pretty fun and some pretty boring, but he does do some pretty sweet samoan drops so it's hard for me not to be a fan. Abe meanwhile is someone I've yet to see in action, but from the looks of it he's a DDT guy who never really ended up getting anywhere big. He came out to Cruel Angel's Thesis and wears EVA-01 gear though, so obviously DDT must've been missing out.
And this ended up being true because Abe was awesome in this match! His grappling was actually pretty damn good, really flowing on the mat early on. He hit some pretty nice dropkicks too, especially one after Uchida kicked out of a roll-up. On the topic of roll-ups, that was the best part of Abe's offense by far, doing a ton of different ones including this beautiful counter one that looks like a reverse Gannosuke clutch:
Uchida, for his part, was solid enough. He never really did much that impressed me or anything, but he also never did anything negative either. Towards the end he did start to hit some cool things, like the nice flowsion below and some cool samoan drops.
This was better than the last match, albeit not by much. It had some cool moments though, and I'm definitely interested in seeing what else Abe has done that's made tape.
Rating: B-
AKINO, Kyosuke Sasaki, & Shuji Ishikawa vs. Chon Akitoshi, Masa Takanashi, & Toshihiro Sueyoshi
I haven't seen a ton from Takanashi or Sueyoshi but they both have cool looks. As for the rest, I've seen enough work from those four to say I'm a fan of them all, especially Sasaki who for my money might be the best U-FILE trainee in terms of pure shoot style ability.
This ended up being solid. The face team were absolutely the highlights of the match. AKINO is awesome as a tenured hard hitting wrestler, and ended up probably being my favorite part of the match. She threw some really awesome kicks and hit one particularly awesome backdrop. She also did some genuinely funny comedy stuff towards the beginning, I couldn't understand anything she or Takanashi were talking about but the fact she just refused to stop trying to talk over him was great. Sasaki was also good in that same role, coming in and just beating people up. It didn't feel like he was in a ton but when he was he did some cool stuff. Ishikawa was great as this giant monster, throwing big boots and manhandling everyone. He had the spot of the match too when he threw Akitoshi into the ring, as seen below.
The heel group (members of the Heisei D-Shingun faction led by Ken Ohka) was also pretty good, albeit definitely not as good as the face side. Akitoshi is awesome, doing kung fu diving side kicks and shit like that. He also did some really great arm targeting stuff on AKINO, really showing how he's not just a one-trick pony with the kung fu. Takanashi was alright but god he made me mad sometimes. In terms of good he did hit a few cool moves like a leg lariat thing he did near the end, and some of his heel work was genuinely pretty good, but man he just would not stop overselling. About 50% of the time, if you hit him slightly hard he was going to flop around on the mat like a fish out of water, and it was some of the dumbest selling I've ever seen. I understand that Heisei D-Shingun is meant to be a heel faction full of guys that are over-emotive and it's meant to be somewhat hokey, but every time he did that and other horrible sells it just took me out of the match. Sueyoshi on the other hand was about as good as Takanashi but was bad for different reasons. He just felt relatively weak and untrained compared to everyone else, throwing nothing forearms and hitting moves sloppily, like he literally only started training a week before the match. At least he got to somewhat redeem himself by hitting this combination with Akitoshi:
I think this was somewhat better than the last match, but not by a ton. It had some pretty fun moments throughout but when 2/3rds of one of the teams are lame ducks, there's a ceiling to how good the match can actually be.
Rating: B
Masato Shibata vs. Hiroshi Kosakai
This is for Shibata's RCW International championship, a title he won from Kosakai, who originally won it at River City Wrestling in 2007 while on a short US tour. At this point, the belt was pretty much a title owned by MAKEHEN/Team Vader, so it makes sense for two MAKEHEN boys to fight for it here. Masato Shibata is the future Mad Paulie, who at this point is just a shooty hoss and a big mark for Vader (a very good combination in my own opinion). Kosakai meanwhile is a guy who I've gotten very hyped up on in the past few months, first seeing him appear on one of the Occupation of the Indiez reruns and then getting more and more into his work as I sought out more full matches. He's a hard-hitting shooter who throws some crazy knees and punches, and he has a really awesome look to him too with the silver/white/black gear and the big arm tattoo.
God man, this match rocked hard. Kosakai was fucking great here, throwing some disgustingly stiff kicks all over Shibata's body, but especially to his leg. He really beat the shit outta Shibata's leg, not only throwing kicks but also stomping on it and really trying to rip it apart with different holds. He didn't just throw kicks though, with the combo shown below being probably the best strike combo he did the whole match. He also somehow hit a fucking brainbuster on the 300+ pound Shibata, which I truly cannot fathom even though I saw it happen.
Shibata more than held up his end of the match though, probably putting in an even better performance than Kosakai. His leg selling during the main portion of the match was great, even doing a running corner move with a slight limp so he could still do his moves but keep the logic of the match going. He threw some absolutely gnarly chops too, with the noise they made being WALTER level, and he also threw some vader hammers with such reckless abandon I'm shocked Kosakai didn't get legitimately fucked up by one. The best part of his whole arsenal was the suplexes though, with this combination genuinely getting me to laugh and say "holy fuck" under my breath.
Now, did this match have some faults? Of course. Kosakai and Shibata both had no-sell moments, and Kosakai had some "KING'S ROAD~!" type shit with a one count kickout which, while significantly less offensive than usual due to the execution of the following spots, was still unneeded. But even with this, I still think this was an absolute blast, with both guys going balls to the wall throughout. A really great match, one that makes me wanna start a new comprehensive series for Kosakai ASAP.
Rating: A-
Keita Yano & Tetsuhiro Kuroda vs. Masashi Takeda & Jaki Numazawa
This looks like a really fun bullshit match on paper. Yano is of course a beast, one of my personal favorites and even this early into his career he was doing a ton of fun stuff (even if he hadn't lost his mind and gone joker mode yet). Kuroda is kinda divisive among people I know but I personally enjoy his work usually, doing some fun spots and having a solid lariat. Takeda is a generational talent, while Sasaki is my favorite shoot style guy from U-FILE CAMP, Takeda is definitely my favorite overall wrestler, and in my opinion might be the greatest "deathmatch" wrestler of all time. Numazawa is another really fun deathmatch guy, and absolutely able to hold his own in normal matches too.
And this ended up being a fun bullshit match in execution! Yano was pretty sweet here, doing his usual work but also incorporating some chair stuff into it. He hit a pretty cool combo of a codebreaker with a chair into the Yurikamome, and he also hit this awesome springboard dropkick onto Takeda with Takeda's head on a chair, as seen below. Kuroda meanwhile was fine, he didn't do anything out of the ordinary for him and he kept the match going.
Takeda and Numazawa were both menaces here. Both frequently used chairs and Numazawa even became the only person to use a weapon besides a chair by hitting Kuroda with the ring bell. Takeda was pretty awesome here just doing his thing, hitting some cool moves like a dropkick with Keita seated in, you guessed it, another chair, as well as a pretty sick german suplex. Numazawa actually was even better in this match in my opinion, doing some really fun brawling and hitting Yano with a michinoku driver onto a pile of... wait for it. CHAIRS! The sickest spot of the match also involved a chair, and it was downright horrifying, with Takeda and Numazawa hitting a suplex on Yano onto an open chair, completely snapping the back of it.
In the end, this ended up being pretty fun, albeit nothing must-see. No real big takeaways or anything, just a fine match featuring some cool spots and overall doing everything it needed to.
Rating: B
No Rope, No Escape: Ken Ohka vs. Kazuhiro Tamura
This match had been built up for a good bit of time, with Ohka leading Heisei D-Shingun (a stable made up of DDT regulars and also Toshihiro Sueyoshi) with the intent of taking over STYLE-E, and Tamura leading the frontlines in fighting this invasion off. He actually lost the title to Masa Takanashi in late 2008, as well as losing a singles to Ohka at the end of the year, but he regained the belt at the show before this one, leading to the two leaders of their respective groups facing off in a match without any ring ropes (the name given for the rules is actually what they called it, which is beast). Ohka came out with his stablemates and Akitoshi flying the Heisei D-Shingun flag, while Tamura came out flanked by the rest of the STYLE-E roster draped in a STYLE-E towel.
Wouldn't you know it, this match was a lot of fun too! Tons of great bullshit spots featuring both teams, which we will get into, but I must at least show you the first one before saying anything else because it fucking ruled:
Ohka was pretty awesome here, doing a ton of cool heel stuff and working strongly from the top. He had some nice punches and cool spots targeting the stomach like this crazy gutwrench gutbuster and his signature rolling fireman's carry. While some of the stuff he did towards the beginning was kinda meh, he absolutely turned it up in the latter half of the match. Best spot of the night on his part was the disgusting spear pictured below. His cronies in Heisei D-Shingun also played their part perfectly, constantly getting involved and being general assholes, eventually leading to the wild brawl that would cause both teams to leave the match.
Tamura, meanwhile, was the absolute king in this match. He layed in some awesome kicks and did some crazy big moves, like an insane spear counter into an armbar. He was really awesome in the role of the underdog too, getting the crowd behind him pretty damn well. The stuff he pulled off towards the end was awesome too, especially this absolutely blasting head kick:
The finishing stretch was fucking insane too, with both guys looking to genuinely destroy the other's brains (Ohka using headbutts and Tamura using head kicks), and honestly just that finishing stretch made this match worth watching. Overall, a really fun main event, and a great way to end the show.
Rating: B+
