STYLE-E 03/21/2009

                   (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+

Comprehensive Rikiya Fudo #1

             (Written by jom)

Rikiya Fudo & Daisaku Shimoda vs. Shuji Ishikawa & Keita Yano (WMF 06/28/2008)

    On paper, this match sounded amazing. Two of my favorite wrestlers in Fudo and Yano getting to face off, with based big dawg and the always reliable Daisaku being there to add their own contributions to the match. It's kinda unfair to them to try and act like they're supporting characters, but personally it was hard at first to not do that considering just how amped up I got at the prospect of Fudo/Yano interactions. Luckily, every single person in this match put in such a great performance that it holds its own as not only a match with great Fudo/Yano interactions, but also just a great match in general.

    Daisaku was really awesome here as a hardass sleazy crowbar shooter, throwing some mean mid kicks and a nice lariat. He also hits Yano with multiple sick piledrivers, really going nuts with targeting Yano's neck all throughout the match. Shuji Ishikawa was also really good, acting as the hot tag for Yano and bringing a lot of fire during his times in the ring. He was still not all the way there in terms of being THE big dawg but he was getting pretty close, throwing his always gross knees and just generally being really damn good.

    The main story of the match, however, was pretty much everything Fudo and Yano were doing. Yano was in great form here, still only just starting to introduce his more odd wrestling tropes but executing basically everything to perfection (save for one pretty bad fuck-up near the end but he recovered immediately like the GOAT he is). He was slick in his grappling and he threw some European uppercuts like his life was on the line. He even got to hit his absolutely awesome springboard dropkick to Daisaku, and it might've been the best one I've ever seen him do.

    Fudo, meanwhile, was by far the best part of this match. He was awesome squaring off against fellow beast Shuji, throwing down with real aggression and even hitting a crazy powerslam on the giant. He also did some really good stuff with his brother, like a sick total elimination type move. His best stuff was absolutely against Yano though, as he got to absolutely destroy him throughout. He treated Yano like a small child, just throwing him around with the greatest of ease and obliterating him with chops and Vader hammers. The brainbuster he hit on Yano was the best one I've ever seen him do, just a genuine attempt to cripple the young crying wolf before he could ever grace Coliseo Cerberus.

    The finish of this match was fucking great too, and really has to be seen to be believed. I think in terms of negatives there's next to none here, besides the crowd just not being super interested in treating this match with any sort of respect. They even seemed to laugh at some of Keita's Keitaisms, which makes me wanna put out a Leavelle tweet concerning Keita Yano fans being part of an exclusive club. Outside of that though, this match was genuinely terrific, and absolutely worth checking out as soon as possible.

Rating: A-

Rikiya Fudo & Daisaku Shimoda vs. Masato Shibata & Kotaro Nasu (U-FILE 10/13/2013)

    Another match featuring the Shimoda Bros (or as I like to call them, the better Hardy Boyz), this time taking on STYLE-E's Masato Shibata and Kotaro Nasu at a U-FILE Camp show from 2013. On a personal note, I cannot even begin to explain how hard I've tried to obtain full U-FILE Camp shows. One from 2011 was main evented by Hikaru Sato vs. Daisuke Nakamura, and another from 2012 had not only Kazuki Okubo vs. Kotaro Nasu, but also Nakamura & Sato vs. Masato Shibata & Kyosuke Sasaki. If I can one day successfully get my hands on some of these U-FILE shows, I'll consider that my peak in the world of tape trading.

    My immediate thought is that this is an amazing mirror match, as you have on both sides a sleaze shooter teaming with a Vader tribute wrestler. And wouldn't you know it, this match was kinda worked how you would expect it from hearing that! There was a definite house show feel to it (probably coming from the fact this particular U-FILE event was mostly an MMA show with the wrestling matches as a treat), and the crowd was very much planning on enjoying this match one way or another, which just makes me sad the last match couldn't have happened in Nishi Chofu.

    Shibata and Nasu did pretty damn good here, with Nasu taking the role of babyface in peril and Shibata being the hot tag. Nasu is definitely under appreciated compared to his fellow U-FILE Camp peers, as while he's not at the level of Takeda, Sasaki, or Nakamura, he's absolutely worth talking about as a really damn good wrestler. He threw some nice strikes including some great shoteis, and his dropkick was sweet. Shibata meanwhile was fully playing the Vader role here, coming in and just laying waste to whoever he was in the ring with. He did an awesome German suplex to Fudo, and hit this absolutely crushing Vader Bomb to Daisaku:

    Once again however, the Shimoda Bros prove their superiority to all others by being general menaces here. Daisaku was once again playing the role of hardass shooter to perfection, throwing kicks and elbows while also just generally being mean. Fudo was the same, just beating up Nasu and hitting his signature spots while also doing some impressive stuff with Shibata. One of the best moments from both of them was getting to see their signature combination, I have no idea if there's a special name but you can pretty much guarantee that if you're watching a Shimoda Bros match, you'll see it.

    The finish of the match wasn't at the level of the last one, but it was still a pretty solid way to cap off the match. A generally pretty fun match with all four guys getting to do cool shit, nothing that I would cancel anything important over but if you're looking to see more from any of these four this is a match worth watching for sure.

Rating: B

Rikiya Fudo vs. Naoya Nomura (CAPTURE International 05/08/2022)

    We are now in the current year, with this match taking place not even a full month ago. This was the 2nd round of the CAPTURE Openweight Championship tournament, and both Fudo and Nomura were coming into this with a lot of steam. They had met less than two months previously a main event tag match at CAPTURE's first show since the pandemic, and thanks to the efforts of everyone @'ing Koki Kitahara on twitter, we were finally able to see a CAPTURE show for the first time since 2003 (I'll also almost definitely be talking about that match at some point). That is to say, this match had history going into it and certain expectations of quality based on both the killer main event tag and the great 1st round matches both guys had.

    Boy, did they outdo those expectations by a landslide.

    Right from the start this was absolutely wild, with both guys just running into each other like furious bulls and not dropping that energy for the entire match. Every single strike they threw had so much intensity behind it, and any hold either of them put in looked like it could end the match just from how hard both would wrench back.

    Naoya Nomura, of course, absolutely killed it here. He's really come into his own as a CAPTURE style bruiser, throwing mean strikes and cinching in tight holds constantly, while still maintaining a lot of his pro wrestling roots. In particular, his spear is one of, if not the best spear in the world currently, absolutely obliterating Fudo with it.

    Rikiya Fudo did not come to the CAPTURE Dungeon to be outdone, and if Nomura hit hard, then Fudo hit even harder. He was like a genuine beast in this match, completely brutalizing Nomura with chops, kicks, and of course his horrific Vader hammers. He even busted out one of the most fucked up elbow drops I have ever seen, landing directly on Nomura's face, as seen below:

    They absolutely tore into each other for the whole match, and it culminated in a finish that, while divisive among people I've talked to about it, I personally think worked great based on where they wanted to go with the tournament. This is, without exaggeration, my current match of the year. It's only 5 and a half minutes long, and at no point does it ever stop keeping me captivated. A testament to the abilities of both men in this environment, and I truly hope we get to see them go at it again very soon.

Rating: A

Atsushi Maruyama Produce 01/18/2015

         (Written by jom)

Kazuaki Mihara vs. Katsumi Oribe

    Two of Maruyama/Tigers Mask's trainees square off to start the show. Oribe is nicknamed "Karate Boy" and comes out in satin pants with a gi belt design on them. This irrationally infuriates yet greatly intrigues me. Mihara meanwhile is out with with an absolutely insane mohawk and looks about 50 lbs heavier than he is today, so good on him for getting fitter.

    Sadly, this match has less to talk about once the bell rings than before it even started. Mihara was fine as the one in control, doing some okay power moves and throwing some kinda hard chest chops. Oribe just wasn't that good though. He only threw a few kicks throughout the entire match and, while fine, none of them seemed good enough to warrant literally being nicknamed "karate boy". The rest of the time he threw some meh chest chops. Finish was solid with Mihara barreling through Oribe with a nice lariat before hitting a well-executed landslide for the win.

    Not that good of a match, I guess it worked as an opener but genuinely, I can only sum up my feelings on Katsumi Oribe with one image.

Rating: C-

Bull Armor TAKUYA vs. Naoshi Sano

    Not many better ways to rebound from a disappointing match than with Naoshi motherfuckin Sano baby. Sano's one of my favorite sleaze indy guys, able to do some genuinely good wrestling when he's in the zone but almost always entertaining regardless. Bull Armor TAKUYA is a guy I only saw for the first time a few days ago, but Chris can vouch for me when I say that he's pretty sweet. He was in a battle royale from a 2007 Riki Office show and at one point did an MDickie running flex taunt into a corner splash, which immediately made him one of Chris' top sleaze boys. However, that was 2007, and this is 2015. In 2007 TAKUYA was absolutely jacked, but here he looks more like Akebono than Chris Masters. This may sound like a negative, but, as my friend Ciel put it:

    In terms of the actual match, it ended up being a pretty fun one. TAKUYA and Sano both have their own bits that they like to do, and more often than not those bits meshed pretty well, such as when Sano would do his "not a powerful wrestler" bit combined with TAKUYA's "extremely powerful wrestler and also evil laugh" bit. TAKUYA has not only gained weight in the last 8 years, but has also seemingly lost brain cells, because he was just going absolutely insane during the match. At one point he started like yelling and swinging his arms around, with both of them ending up in a flex pose. He then went completely silent for about 3 seconds before starting to do his weird evil laugh thing and ran in place for 10 seconds. I'm not entirely sure what this bit is meant to be but credit to him for the creativity. 

    The actual wrestling during this match wasn't particularly great or anything, but it was totally serviceable for the type of match they were doing. TAKUYA throws some real thunderous chops a few times, and Sano is more than game to do a little bit of hard striking of his own. TAKUYA also does a pretty sweet Vader bomb at one point, but soon after would get rolled up by Sano, resulting in Sano's victory.

    While this wasn't anything special in terms of the "action", this match still ended up being a lot of fun thanks to the really enjoyable personalities of the two involved. Comedy can be hit or miss for me but this was definitely a hit.

Rating: B-

Osamu Suganuma & Kuishinbo Kamen vs. Takoyakida & Otoko Sakari

    Y'know how I literally just said "comedy can be hit or miss for me"? Well, hello Otoko Sakari. Glad you could be here to demonstrate the latter option. If you don't know, Otoko Sakari is the comedy gimmick of the legendary Alexander Otsuka, one of my personal GOATs and an undeniably amazing wrestler in his prime. Otoko Sakari, meanwhile, fucking stinks. I've never been a fan of someone's whole gimmick being based around their private areas and gross-out humor, so whenever I see genuine all-timer Otsuka trying to force people to eat his gross ass through a loincloth, it just makes me really sad that I'm not watching him do actually cool stuff. Anyways, there's three other people in this match, including Kuishinbo Kamen (an example of good comedy wrestling!).

    I don't have a ton of notes for this match because sadly, about half of it was Sakari spots, and I just cannot bring myself to note down every time he presented his asshole to an audience member. Takoyakida wasn't great either, as he pretty just did a "funny haha" voice and pointed at his ass a few times. He might've done more but he was so nothing in the entire match I can't remember. I will say that in terms of good comedy, Suganuma and Kamen brought it in spades. Suganuma is of course the 3rd Ebessan (after Kikutaro and Flying Kid Ichihara), so he's able to do some pretty fun comedy spots such as trying to hit a running senton only to fly about 5 feet off target. Kamen is of course the best part of this match, a genuine all-time great of the comedy wrestling genre. He was an absolute dickhead this entire match, pummeling Takoyakida with closed fists and low blows. This of course culminated in maybe my favorite spot of the whole match, where Kamen does this:

What an asshole!

    Unsurprisingly, the actual wrestling was pretty solid as well. Both Kamen and Suganuma are pretty damn good in the ring, with Kamen continuing to be impressively agile over 20 years into his career at this point, and Suganuma doing some pretty cool moves as well. Takoyakida was fine, about as forgettable as a wrestler as he was as a comedian though. The most impressive/depressing part of this match was definitely Sakari, as shockingly, he could seemingly still go at this point. Maybe it was because he didn't have to work at the usual hard pace he does, but he was able to pull off the best giant swing I've ever seen him do in the 2010s. This is depressing because it happened in an Otoko Sakari match, meaning almost immediately after this he went back to trying to force his opponents to eat his ass. The match ended soon after with Suganuma hitting a genuinely great Musou for the victory.

    I think that when you look at this match outside of the Otoko Sakari stuff, it was actually kinda good. Kamen and Suganuma were both really enjoyable, and Takoyakida was perfectly fine as the guy taking all of their cool moves. However, the Otoko Sakari stuff was at least half of the entire match, and it wouldn't be right to not consider just how bad and even boring some of it made the overall match. If you enjoy that type of comedy I guess this match would be up your alley but my god I just can't bring myself to like it.

Rating: C-

Magnitude Kishiwada, Tadasuke, & Shuji Ishikawa vs. Naoki Sakurajima, Mineo Fujita, & HUB

    After three matches that ranged from meh to flat-out bad, I really needed to see something that made sitting down for this tape worth it. This match had made me excited from the second I saw it listed on the show, so going into this I was hoping that this would be the match to help me recover my drive and push me to actually stick around the the main event. Honestly, I'm a little disappointed in myself though. Why would I ever doubt that this match would kick ass?

    Not a single person in this match did a bad job on this night. Genuinely, I think every person delivered what they were meant to deliver. Sakurajima was the whipping boy for the face team, taking the brunt of the major offense and being targeted by a particularly malicious Kishiwada for most of the match, which only lead to his eventual comeback against Kishiwada being that much more impactful. Fujita was also doing great as a whipping boy in this match, albeit he got significantly more offense in. Fujita's a guy that I have extremely mixed feelings on, as on one hand he's an extremely talented juniors guy who was quite possibly the greatest WMF trainee out of the few to come out of the promotion. On the other hand, he's fully committed himself nowadays to his "EROTIC VIOLENCE" gimmick, and as said before, gimmicks based around cock and balls just aren't my thing. He's a perfect example of an exceptional wrestler who completely squanders any interest I'd have in him because he has a stupid, gross gimmick. In this match though, that isn't the case, as while he's near the peak of his wrestling abilities he also hasn't taken on the gimmick of a pervert yet so he's significantly more enjoyable. Tadasuke was pretty similar to Fujita in this match actually, being the clear whipping boy for the face team while also acting as a good spoiler, shutting down different comeback attempts. I think he definitely performed at a lesser level than he could, but that was less because of his own efforts and more because he just wasn't the center of attention at any point really.

    In terms of the best performances though, that mark definitely goes to HUB and Shuji Ishikawa. HUB was undeniably the best part of the face team, hitting all his usual spots to perfection. I'm a sucker for moves involving grey-area weaponry, and HUB's tail whip is maybe the best of that category. He's also just a genuinely amazing juniors wrestler, and even at one point hits an insane diving senton onto Kishiwada and Tadasuke stacked on top of each other. However, the best wrestler not only on the heel team, but in the entire match, was for sure the big dawg. He actually acted as the backbone for the entire match, guiding the ebbs and flows with his actions and consistently being the one to push the match forward positively, keeping it from entering into flat-out move spamming or losing heat. Ishikawa is also just one of the best of his style, and he was in full-form on this night, doing some insane power moves like a stun gun to Fujita where he threw him like a lawn dart into the ropes. He also popped off multiple of his disgusting knees, culminating in this absolutely nutty one to Fujita:

    Soon after this, the faces were able to get the advantage, with Tadasuke eventually being put down for the 3 count after being hit with a swanton bomb from Fujita followed by a beautiful frog splash from HUB.

    This was an absolute barn-burner of a match. It's honestly hard to say more than that. It went almost 20 minutes, yet at no point do I think it felt like it was going long. Every person got their moment to shine, and even if I think Tadasuke should've gotten a little bit more in the match, overall this is still one of the best 6-man tags I've seen in a very good bit of time. A wonderful palette cleanser of a match in preparation for the main event.

Rating: A-

Atsushi Maruyama vs. Daisuke Sekimoto

    For anyone that doesn't know, Atsushi Maruyama is the real name of one Tigers Mask, a common fixture of the Osaka scene. In all honesty, I've always been split on Maruyama. I think that while he's definitely talented in the ring and is a good lucharesu guy, I've always felt that his strikes left a lot to be desired, and his "Tigers Suplex" is one of the worst tiger suplexes I've ever seen. However, Sekimoto is a true future Hall of Famer (for whatever Hall of Fame he'd be able to be entered in) so I had faith that even if Maruyama shit the bed, Sekimoto would make sure this match was still at least good. In good news though, Sekimoto totally didn't need to carry the match, as Maruyama very much held up his side of the encounter.

    The match's overall story was pretty good. Maruyama spent a lot of time attacking the limbs of Sekimoto, throwing some hard strikes at the legs while primarily focusing on targeting the right arm of the muscle monster. He threw some genuinely nasty kicks to it, as well as pulling out some pretty nice submissions like a tight kimura. He also was able to pull off some pretty cool maneuvers, like countering a lariat by backflipping before locking in a tight manji-gatame. Sekimoto was in peak form here, continuing to show why his mid-10s were probably the best years of his entire career. He absolutely obliterated Maruyama with some mean chops and forearms, and also threw Maruyama around like a child with some insane suplexes. Of these suplexes though, none of them were as impressive as his outside-in deadlift german suplex, where he seemed to pick up Maruyama so casually that I genuinely didn't register that he was lifting him until he was actually starting to suplex Maruyama.

    In terms of criticisms, this match definitely was not perfect. Maruyama was hit-or-miss with some of his strikes, the biggest miss being his high kicks. Maybe it was because his low and mid-kicks were so vicious, but when he started throwing ultra-light thigh-slappy high kicks at Sekimoto, I genuinely lost interest in the whole Maruyama control segment. Also, for a lot of the earlier portion of the match Maruyama depended a lot of some pretty boring rest holds. Sekimoto isn't exempt from criticisms either, as the end of the match, while good, entirely ignored the last 90% of the match. Sekimoto was able to take control from Maruyama and started to just hit all his big match-enders, throwing two nasty lariats before hitting his beautiful deadlift german suplex for the win. While this finish was sweet in isolation, it entirely ignored the 10 or so minutes of Maruyama hyper-focused on the right arm of Sekimoto (the arm that Sekimoto hit those last few lariats with mind you). I'm not saying that Sekimoto shouldn't have hit his ending combination, because it was awesome. All I'm saying is that if that was what the ending was going to be, maybe working over his right arm wasn't the best move.

    Overall, this was a really good match between two guys who had enough chemistry to make going 20+ minutes mostly work. While I have gripes with the ending and some of Maruyama's offense choices, I can't deny that he performed well overall and definitely exceeded my expectations. Was this match better than the one before it? Absolutely not. But it told its own story and at bare minimum, I'll be thinking about that outside-in german for a while.

Rating: B