Yoshinari Ogawa vs Junta Miyawaka
Clipped version of a match that apparently only goes 5 mins
anyway. Ogawa works over the arm of Miyawaka in some fun, torturous ways.
Miyawaka comes back with some token basic offence, but Ogawa grabs the arm on
at attempted sunset flip and cranks an overhead hammerlock to win.
Akitoshi Saito vs Masao Inoue vs Seiya Morohashi
Another clipped match, but what’s shown is fun. Saito and
Inoue pretty much team up on Morohashi, but you can tell Saito has no respect
for Inoue and is constantly undermining him. At times he even sabotages the
best intentions of Inoue, helping Morohashi avoid a sunset flip by pushing him
downward onto Inoue. It feels like Saito knows he can win if he just gets Inoue
in the ring alone, and he does, hitting a standing enzuigiri for the victory.
Cody Hall & Kazma Sakamoto vs Maybach Taniguchi &
Mitsuya Nagai
I’ve actually seen Sakamoto live, very much a “what’s this
guy doing here?” situation, as he fought El Ligero in the first of a
back-to-back double bill of shows. Strangely, he only wrestled on one show, you’d
have thought that he’d be on both after the expense of flying him into Britain.
This kicks off with a brawl that sees all four on the outside. Sakamoto takes a
big bump to the floor, which warms him to me, but then takes a really wussy
bump hitting a low angle suplex. We clip to a 2-1 situation back in the ring,
with Sakamoto nowhere to be seen. Hall looked to have really soft blows at the
start of the match, but he really lays his stuff in at this point, discus
clothesline looks great. However, he’s overmanned, eating a top rope headbutt
from Nagai, a top rope splash from Taniguchi, then Taniguchi hits the weakest
move of the match – a kind of waistlock version of the Edgeomatic – for the
win.
Hitoshi Kumano vs YO-HEY
YO-HEY is instantly annoying to look at. He looks like he
should be running some wacky YouTube channel where he pranks unsuspecting
members of the public, who just want to go on with their day without a
colourfully haired idiot making life more difficult. He’s not much offensively,
hitting a few decent kicks but not much else. Kumano seems really great though.
Loved him hitting an STO into a back-breaker, then focusing on the back for the
rest of the match. Nasty clubbing blows to the back, catching YO-HEY in mid air
for another backbreaker, then hitting a vicious looking straightjacket into a
backbreaker that really feels like the end. Sadly, YO-HEY gets the win with a
pair of knees to the face from nowhere, but Kumano feels like a guy I want to
see more off.
Minoru Tanaka vs Tadasuke
Disappointingly clipped quite a few times, in really obvious
places that totally change the momentum of the match. One guy will get hit with
a move, only for him to be on his feet with his opponent on the mat within a
second. What we do get looks pretty good. Tanaka uses the upper thigh of
Tadasuke as his focus, hitting dropkicks just above the knee and using a swift
kick when he needs to regain control. Tadasuke hits a pair of huge
clotheslines, at one point covering Tanaka so excitedly that he pulls his
shoulders off the mat. Tadasuke picks up Tanaka in a torture rack, but Tanaka
slips free and locks in a leglock for the win.
Hajime Ohara vs HAYATA
Ohara and HAYATA are tag partners to Kumano and YO-HEY
respectively, and Ohara seems to be having an easier time of it that his
partner did. He controls HAYATA pretty easily on the mat, including a nice
Boston crab variation. HAYATA tried a handspring elbow that didn’t have enough
reach on it, basically forcing Ohara to walk into the move after HAYATA was
clearly about to fall short. His strikes are also a bit weak looking, so it’s
lucky that Ohara picks up the slack for the match. Like Kumano, he has a nice
assortment of back breakers, hitting ones from a full Nelson and from over his
shoulder. He gets the win with a half crab, be interested in seeing more of his
team with Kumano.
Hi69 vs Daisuke Harada
Haven’t seen a Hi69 match in about 15 years. Really liked
how this started, Hi69 hitting a tope before Haruda is even in the ring,
nailing a running kick inside for two, then immediately trying a second for
another two, before Haruda rolls outside to catch his readjust. They have a fun
brawl outside, Haruda hitting a suplex onto a pile of chairs on the floor
before he even gets a chance to take off his hoodie. Back inside, Haruda
manages to look more in control, one step ahead of Hi69, who is forced to
resort to quick pin attempts to sneak a win. Liked Harada hitting a cradle
neckbreaker onto his knee. The tide turns with a ref bump, that allows Hi69 to
bring a table into the mix, hitting a big splash from the top to the floor
through it. Back inside, a top rope splash only gets two, the ref still
recovering, but a high angle Michinoku Driver gives Hi69 the win.
Katsuhiko Nakajima, Masa Kitamiya & Quiet Storm vs Atsushi
Kotege, Mohammed Yone & Naomichi Marufuji
So this is a pretty fun little six man. Quiet Storm seems to
have properly bulked out since I last saw him a decade ago, and somehow this
makes him look even shorter. He’s matched in the meathead caveman stakes though
by Kitamiya, a burly looking beast who isn’t opposed to hitting a backfist
against the ropes. Nakajima and Marufuji manage to have a strike exchange that’s
pretty fun, with Nakajima proving himself to be a bit smarter by using kicks,
wearing down Marufuji a lot quicker than Marufuji is doing to him with strikes.
The kicks are really thudding too, looked really great. Yone and Kotege kind of
highlight how good it was by having a far less interesting one moments later.
Kitamiya catches a Kotege crossbody and turns it into a Samoan Drop, which
looks great. Everything breaks down and Kotege hits Storm with a series of weak
kicks and the Killswitch for the victory. Fun stuff.
Go Shiozaki & Kaito Kiyomiya vs Kenou & Takashi
Sugiura
This is the final of the Global Tag League, and I’ll be
honest, this didn’t work for me. Just felt like far too much of the match was
given to excessive non-selling of moves or needlessly overlong strike
exchanges. I understand that this is part of the house style, but when Sugiura
can catch a charging Shiozaki flush in the face with a knee, only for Shiozaki
to wave it off like nothing happened, it doesn’t feel entertaining. Despite
this, there were bits I liked, mainly from the Kenou/Shuiura team. Shugiura is
a powerful looking bull of a man, with some nice looking strikes (when sold),
and I did enjoy him ending one of many chop exchanges by just slugging Shiozaki
in the face. He also hit a delayed vertical suplex from the second rope, which
looked terrific, and his clotheslines all looked like they’d take a man’s head
off. Kenou, for his part, had nice movement, hit some nice kicks from
interesting positions and seemed like he was trying to make a struggle of the
match. When Kiyomiya tried for a Tiger suplex, Kenou refused to give up his
arm, forcing Kiyomiya to really work for it. Kiyomiya had some very non-hurty
looking offence, but he seemed harmless enough. The end sequence is pretty hot,
with guys coming in at the last moment to break nearfalls, before Shiozaki
finishes Kenou with a clothesline, but as a whole there isn’t much substance.
