Dradition - Tatsumi Fujinami Debut 45th Anniversary Show - 20/04/2017

As the title suggests, this is a show to celebrate Fujinami's 45 years in wrestling, topped with an all-star main event. Nothing blowaway here, but good enjoyable stuff from start to finish

Ryuta Hasumi & Super Tiger vs Nobuyuki Kurashima & Sanshu Tsubakichi

The first part of this match involves Kurashima and Tsubakichi working opposite Hasumi, slowly breaking down his resistance between them. Kurashima is able to control Hasumi on the mat, which slows him down enough that Tsubakichi is able to get in strikes, when he hadn’t been able to at the beginning of the bout. Kurashima hits a great looking deadlift back suplex. Tiger has to make several saves, as Hasumi is getting more and more overmatched. When Tiger gets in, he’s able to regain control for his team, though he does eat a nice STO from Tsubakichi. However, Tiger gets the win with a seated Octopus stretch on Tsubakichi. Fun opener.

LEONA vs Kenichiro Arai

LEONA is the son of Tatsumi Fujinami, so it makes sense for him to on this show. The match is worked with Arai as the wily veteran vs the less experienced LEONA, and Arai is a lot of fun in the role. Stooging about, hiding in a bid to avoid a LEONA dive and hitting a cheapshot off a handshake in the ropes. He also moves the ref into the corner in order to hide a low blow, and makes a liberal use of the ropes to help himself. LEONA hits a nice butterfly suplex and wins with a backslide.

Shinjiro Otani & the Great Kabuki vs Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Yoshiaki Fujiwara

This is uncomplicated fun, with no-one really getting into second gear. This kind of helps with Kabuki, who doesn’t look in as good shape as the other three. Otani and Fujiwara work a fun segment based around Fujiwara’s hard head, before Fujiwara works an armbar vs chops section with Kabuki. Kabuki looks pretty hunched over, not in great shape, but he can still throw strikes and later works a decent strike exchange with Fujiwara. Otani looks unassuming, like a mild-mannered accountant out for the weekend, but his segment with Takaiwa is really fluid. Otani’s Tree of Woe dropkicks still look nasty. Kabuki works a claw section, and I like Otani pulling the ropes away to prevent a rope break. Takaiwa eats the red mist from Kabuki and staggers into an Otani lariat for the win.

KENSO & Mitsuya Nagai vs Naoki Sano & Yoshihiro Takayama

Another match that’s uncomplicated fun. KENSO has really nice physical charisma, he seems to have progressed a lot in that department in his WWE run. He slaps Sano from a rope break early, and Sano has this really confused sad pug look on his face. Nagai tries to outkick Takayama, which goes about as well as you’d expect. Nagai gets worked over, eating a nice belly-to-belly from Takayama, but makes a comeback with an unlikely exploder. Loved KENSO’s out of control dive, just looked like a big man using his body as a weapon with little regard of the consequences. Sano has nice spinning kicks, but gets isolated. KENSO hits a top rope elbow on him, and Nagai hits a top rope knee-strike to the face to win.

Riki Choshu, Shiro Koshinaka & Tatsumi Fujinami vs AKIRA, Keiji Mutoh & Vader

As is in keeping with the rest of this show, this is an enjoyable match without ever being close to being a classic. It’s very much a case of giving the crowd what they want, with all 6 men being able to hit their big stuff and get out without getting to exhausted (though Vader looks in bad shape afterwards, seemingly passing out on the mat in the post-match presentation ceremony to Fujinami). AKIRA is in the best shape of his team members, so ends up taking the bulk of the bumps for his team. Fujinami, apart from a really sloppy looking slam on Vader (felt like Vader wasn’t able to get himself up fully for the slam and Fujinami wasn’t strong enough to be able to adjust him in the air), looks good throughout, really fired up. He eats big moves from all the opposition – bear attack from Vader, Shining Wizard from Mutoh and top rope splash from AKIRA, but escapes at two. Unsurprisingly, it’s AKIRA who takes the fall, as Choshu nails a lariat and Fujinami locks in the Dragon sleeper for the tap.

Zero-One 18/03/2005

Having not reviewed any puro for a while, I thought it best to look through some of the shows I'd not got round to watching yet. This one, with an odd mix of puro wrestlers and US indy talent, was the first one to catch my eye. The main event has a particularly random line-up...

Osamu Namiguchi vs Lil Nate
Oh man, to see Lil Nate is to hate Lil Nate. Coming to the ring with a ridiculous strawberry-blonde afro and "quirky" ring music, he looks like Lauren Harries crossed with a hyperactive schoolchild , and I really want him to die here. Therefore, Namiguchi schooling him on the mat is quite the treat, locking in headscissors and Boston crabs to wear him down. Your enjoyment of the match will probably be dependant on just how much you enjoy Lil Nate being tortured, so I did enjoy this very much. It's not totally one sided, as Nate gets a brief comeback and a few roll ups, but the end soon comes with Namiguchi grabbing him by his stupid hair to hit a top rope bulldog and a la majistral cradle to win.

Kevin Steen vs Takashi Sasaki
Fun to note how young and lean Steen looks here. This is perfectly fine wrestling, but it's fair to say this is "just a match". It gets to a point where Steen yells for the package piledriver, and I realise the only note I've made on the match is "Lovely moonsault by Steen" (and to be fair, it really was a beauty). Not that anything was bad per se, but just that some stuff happened, and then it was time for the finishing sequence, as both guys get nearfalls, before Steen actually gets the package piledriver (which I'm glad there was a bit of a fight for) to win.

Steve Corino & Amazing Kong vs Spanky & Saki Maemura
This is a mixed tag bout, but not one fought under mixed tag rules. The reason for this is likely the fact that Kong is both taller and bigger than Spanky. There is an underlying story that Kong has a "thing" for Spanky. I did enjoy Spanky being more scared of fighting Kong than fighting Corino, especially as he kept flying off her when trying shoulderblocks. Maemura fares better, as she uses speed and roll-ups to try and outfox Kong. Of course, this nearly backfires when the rules allow her to be in the ring, as the same time as Corino, who cockily bullies her until she hits a flying headscissors on him. We get a few sexual comedy spots, as Spanky avoids the advances of Kong, who ends up accidentally making out with Corino, before the smaller team repeatedly ram Corino's head into Kong's chest rather than the turnbuckle, and a few fun spots I'd not seen before. One involved Kong and Corino pressing Maemura off them during a pinfall attempt, only for Spanky to catch her and drop her back onto Kong. Spanky hits Sliced Bread #2 on Kong, but turns into a Corino lariat for the win. This was pretty entertaining.

Tatsuhito Takaiwa vs Ricky Reyes
Reyes was always my favourite Havana Pitbull, mainly due to his stocky build. This kicks off with some fun matwork, as I liked the fact they made it look like a real battle to lock in each hold. Takaiwa used a fantastic single-leg crab during this, holding Reyes at a painful looking angle. Outside, Reyes takes a few nasty bumps when he gets thrown into chairs and the bleachers. This was a match where Reyes always felt like he was in it, so not a squash, but at the same time it always felt like he was a shade behind Takaiwa, so it was no surprise when Takaiwa finished with his double powerbomb into a Death Valley Driver.

Minoru Fujita & Ikuto Hidaka vs CW Anderson & Jay Lethal
Pretty even tag match in the early going until Lethal tries to double-cross Fujita on a handshake, at which point things start to pick up. Anderson and Lethal play subtle heels here, and it's nice to note Anderson still has pretty sweet punches. Love them suplexing Fujita into a load of chairs at ringside. Hidaka gets a nice offensive flurry inside, before Lethal goes for a tope con hilo, which only hits his partner, with no opponent in site. Hidaka is a guy I've always liked, and he looks great here, reversing a CW spinebuster into a sunset flip in a really fluid motion. Anderson had a few staple spots that looked great, like his delayed superplex and the spinebuster (which he does eventually hit), and the match has a really nice ending sequence that only really goes overboard when Lethal is allowed to kick out of a spike tombstone piledriver. In the end, Hidaka pins Lethal following Sliced Bread #2. Fun match.

Takao Omori & Ryouji Sai vs Shinjiro Otani & Kohei Sato
No intros here, as the team of Otani and Sato attack before the bell. Omori ends up fighting Sato in the ring, but does a terrible job of trying to rip his shirt off in between strikes. Hulk Hogan, he is not. Otani is in prime dickish mode here, doing nasty little things like lifting his opponent up by the mouth, and I love his nasty dropkick to the face when he gets Sai in a tree of woe. Sai is the one chap in the match I don't know, and he gets to look really good here, really nailing Sato and Otani with his strikes and kicks, which all look crisp. In the second half of the match, Sato and Otani start to work over the arm of Omori, clearly to stop him throwing his big lariat. Otani in particular hits some nasty kicks to the limb. Omori does manage a two count on the Omori Driver, but his attempt at the lariat is thwarted by Otani kicking the arm, and avoiding a second attempt with a roll-up for the win.

Alex Shelley & Masato Tanaka vs Dick Togo & Sonjay Dutt
Here are two odd looking teams. This is a TLC match where pinfalls are valid. You've got to love the sight of Tanaka, five minutes into the match, shoulder all bandaged, diving from a ladder outside the ring to put Togo through a table to "ECW" chants. Tanaka proceeds to bloody Togo outside the ring, leaving Dutt at a two-on-one disadvantage. Predictably, he gets battered, with Tanaka crushing him with a ladder for two. Togo looks awesome coming in off a hot tag (though this is the only tag in the entire match, and Shelley and Tanaka had been treating the match like a tornado tag. Nonetheless, Togo shows great fire when he comes in). A suicide dive to a seated Shelley looks awesome. There is another lovely moment, where Togo pushes Shelley off the top rope to the outside, with the camera angle making it look like he's pushing Shelley into oblivion. There are a few nice spots in the closing moments of the match, including Dutt pushing Tanaka off a ladder into a Togo cutter through a table, which looks great. Dutt survives a superplex from the ladder through a table to hit an off-target Phoenix splash onto Shelley's face for the win. Really fun stunt match, though the Togo/Tanaka sequences were a lot smoother than the Shelley/Dutt moments.

NJPW 09/10/2000

Shinya Hashimoto vs Tatsumi Fujinami
I’ve never seen Fujinami wrestle before, but a little research shows he was about 46 here, in which case he was in fantastic shape. It also means I’ve got no point of reference for how good he is, but this match is pretty uninspiring. There’s fleeting moments of excitement, but a bit too much going through the motions. Both guys jockey for position to start, with both hesitant to attack and expose themselves, until Hash decides to unload with some strikes, which lasts until Fujinami catches his leg on a kick and takes him to the mat. Back up, and Fujinami tries some strikes of his own, but gets taken down by a Hashimoto legsweep. Hash follows with a big senton. Hash then hits an Indian Deathlock. This heat up again with another strike exchange, this time with Fujinami taking some kicks flush to the face. It takes four of them to put him down. Fujinami is dead weight and Hash struggles to get him to his feet. However, Fujinami blocks a Hash brainbuster, but falls prey to a DDT, before Hash locks in a keylock for the tapout. Really anticlimactic.

Jushin Liger vs Super Delfin
JIP, which is a shame as it’s a match I’d like to see in full. We join as Delfin hits a tornado DDT on Liger, and locks in a Delfin Clutch for two. Delfin hits Liger with a palmstrike and the Osaka Cutter, before locking in a camel clutch. Liger breaks free and hits a palmstrike for a one count. A second gets a two count. A third is followed by a Fisherman Buster for the Liger win. Really want more of this.

Takashi Iizuka vs Don Frye
JIP again, though we get a bit more of this match. We join with Frye holding a leglock on Iizuka, who makes the ropes. Frye then holds a keylock on, before Iizuka makes the ropes again. Frye tries a judo throw, but is caught in a rear naked choke in a nice little sequence. Frye makes the ropes, but Iizuka hits two exploders before locking in another rear naked choke. Frye manages to break it again and nails a big belly-to-back suplex. Frye breaks from a front facelock and locks in a rear naked choke of his own for the win.

Tatsuhito Takaiwa vs Koji Kanemoto
JIP, with Koji getting knees on a moonsault attempt, but it seems that Kanemoto has been working over Takaiwa’s legs, as it’s him selling the impact the most. KK goes after the injured legs, locking in a figure-four before hitting a Frankensteiner and transitioning straight into a anklelock. Takaiwa inflicts damage of his own, getting two after turning a top rope rana into a powerbomb, but Kanemoto goes back to the leg again. However, it’s all for naught, as Takaiwa powerbombs him (barely) into the corner and hits a DVD for the win. Seemed pretty good.

Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima vs Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi
Our final JIP match sees the TenKoji team dominating Nakanishi. A Tenzan Driver is followed by a top rope headbutt for two. Kojima hits a Koji Cutter from second rope, but poses too long and gets nailed by 3 spears from Nakanishi. Nakanishi goes for the Argentine backbreaker, but Tenzan breaks and TenKoji hit a doubleteam powerbomb. Nakanishi goes for a claw on Kojima, who breaks free and instead nails a lariat for the win.

Steve Williams vs Scott Norton
This is a battle of the gaijins, AJPW vs NJPW. Both guys are positioned as evenly matched, as a battle of shoulderblocks and clotheslines yields no winner. However, Doc hits a dropkick to Norton’s arm and begins to focus his assault on the limb. I love the fact that Williams, just before he wraps Norton’s arm around the ringpost, finds time to dish out a pair of headbutts to Norton. In a nice sequence, Williams fights to lock a cross-armbreaker on Norton, who keeps trying to power out to a good reaction, before he manages to re-link his fingers. Norton hits a shoulderblock with his bad shoulder, which means that Doc can recover and hit a sort-of suicide dive. Williams continues to work the arm, but decides to go to the top rope and is caught by a top tope powerslam. Doc rallies back and tries a backdrop driver, but Norton falls on top for a two count. What I really like is the way both guys really have to struggle on their powermoves. It may result in the move not looking totally clean, but it adds to the realism and makes it feel like a proper fight: Doc shouldn’t be able to easily lift a guy as big as Scott Norton for a gutwrench powerbomb. When he does, it clearly takes a massive effort to get Norton up. Williams hits a backdrop driver on Norton, the effort of which keeps both men down. Doc hits a second, but Norton gets straight back to his feet. However, a third (where Norton lands on top of Doc, clearly winding him) gets the win. Fun heavyweight collision.

Masanobu Fuchi & Shiro Koshinaka vs Masa Chono & Mr T
Mr T is Tatsutoshi Goto under a mask. This is a battle of the veterans, and another AJPW vs NJPW clash. In line with this, Fuchi is more than happy to fight dirty, attacking the NJPW duo from the bell and standing on the face of Chono. Mr T comes in an offers some blows to Fuchi’s stomach, but Fuchi takes it to the mat and works over his legs, locking in an STF followed by an Indian Deathlock. However, as good as Fuchi is on the mat, he falls prey to the team of Chono and T, who hit him with a neato spike piledriver. Whilst Chono continues to beat up Fuchi, however, Koshinaka piledrives Goto on the ramp to the ring, which allows the heel team to make the most of their man advantage. Koshinaka hits a top rope butt-butt and a powerbomb for two. Mr T comes back and holds Koshinaka in place for Chono, but Chono is still on the mat and, when he does get up, his Yakuza kick attempt is ducked, hitting T in the face. This doesn’t hinder the face team for long, as they throw Fuchi from the ring and Goto nails Koshinaka with a lariat for the win. Watchable, but not amazing.

Toshiaki Kawada vs Kensuke Sasaki
This, on the other hand, is absolutely awesome. It’s our final AJPW vs NJPW encounter, with two company aces going head to head. Ergo, we’ve got a real big-match atmosphere. An opening strike exchange is pretty even, but ends with Kawada outside the ring regaining his bearings. Back in, Kawada tries taking control on the mat, but Sasaki breaks free and nails a big lariat. This prompts a chop exchange that ends with Sasaki on one knee, allowing Kawada to down him with an enzuigiri. Kawada takes this as a cue to just kick the shit out of Sasaki, constantly wearing him down. After taking a belly-to-back suplex, Sasaki starts to come back, blocking a powerbomb attempt and hitting two big lariats for a two count. Sasaki locks in a sharpshooter, which gets broken by Kawada making the ropes. Sasaki tries to lariat him down again, but his lariats have no effect on Kawada. This leads to both men exchanging lariats, which Sasaki eventually wins, only for Kawada to get straight back up and level him with a Yakuza kick! This is terrific. A double lariat puts both men down. Sasaki gets up, but tries another lariat and runs into an enzuigiri from Kawada, which hits him on the lariat arm! Kawada hits another three enzuigiri’s, but a fourth is blocked. Sasaki tries another lariat, but runs directly into another Kawada enzuigiri, which is enough to get the win in a colossal war. Just an fantastic match, with both guys getting to look near invincible as they trade bombs in an attempt to finally put the other away. Strongly recommended.

Zero-One Truth Century Creation 2003

Right, straight off the bat I'm going to be honest: I've never really got into Puroresu. Actually, that is a slight lie. After all, I loved watching NJPW on Eurosport 15 years ago, but that had English commentary which really helped my 13yr old self understand it, and it was a long time ago. There are some Japanese wrestlers I love- Lyger, Hayabusa, Onryo etc, so I know I should give it a proper go. I've ordered a few DVD's for $3 a pop which I'm looking forward to arriving, but in the interim, I'm going to give a proper go to some of the Puro tapes I bought years back and never properly watched. Bare with me if I show undue ignorance to styles and to wrestlers, I'm learning.

Ikuto Hidaka vs Pentagon
A good starting point here, I've seen Hidaka wrestling in MLW so i know who he is and what to expect. Pentagon I assume is somehow related to Octagon, due to the name and his near identical costume. I liked the way they tested each other out on the mat before Hidaka went into another gear and started properly assaulting the knee of Pentagon. I didn't like the way Pentagon no-sold it seconds later by backflipping from the top rope onto his feet, especially as it comes into play in the ending. Hidaka reminds me of an angry small child, which I love. Hidaka hits a swank tornado DDT off the ropes and Pentagon brings some goods himself with a colossal splash mountain. Hidaka gets a rolling heel hook for the immediate tapout, which may have felt less anti-climactic if Pentagon has sold his leg earlier in the match.

Don Arakawa & Jun Kasai vs Fuyuki Takahashi & Shinsuke Z Yamagasa
Kasai seems to be working a chimp gimmick, which I only pray he always uses. Arakawa provides instructions from the apron. Don tags in and goes woozy after dishing out a series of headbutts to Takahashi and I realise we may be in comedy match territory, which I admittedly should have spotted when a man came out acting like a chimp. Kasai slips on his own bananas just to hammer the point home. Takahashi and Yamagasa both seem to have some decent offence but you spend their time on attack waiting for Kasai to start acting the fool again. Don hits a succession of eye-pokes on a downed Takahashi but gets caught in the ropes attempting to leap on Yamagasa. Kasai is the star of the match- not only does he nail the comedy with a straight face, he also has some nice crisp offence and finishes the match with a sharp series of kicks.

Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Vansack Acid vs Low-Ki & Paul London
Another dose of guys I know to help ease me into this. Both team have similar looks, with each having a floppy-haired pretty boy and a balding grump. Takaiwa wins me over pretty quickly by taking a nasty bump to the outside. A series of dives from the apron ends with London hitting a running shooting star press that launches him like a missile. London puts forth a great showing in this match, not only with some perfectly executed moves (his rolling Northern Lights suplex is outstanding), but also the little things like kicking Acid's hand to stop him blocking a stomp to the shoulder from Ki. The two Americans dominate Acid who doesn't really offer much offence aside from a few kicks. Takaiwa fares better, working a nice exchange with Ki over an octopus stretch and possessing a good, painful-looking lariat. Towards the end London gets to hit London Calling, which I still think looks better than Evan Bourne's SSP, but Takaiwa hits him with a double powerbomb into a DVD which is enough for 3. Not mind-blowing, but a pretty enjoyable match.

Kendo Kashin, Kaz Hayashi & Ryuji Hijikata vs Naohiro Hoshikawa, Kazhiko Ogasawara & Yoshihito Sasaki
My WCW fandom ensures I know Kaz and I'm familiar with Kashin from the few other Puro tapes I've seen. He seems like a dick, which I appreciate. As if to prove this, he barges past his teammates during their pre-match interview. A little research informed me that Hoshikawa suffered a brain injury in 2004 and fell into a coma, which is horrible news, though apparently he's in far better shape now than he was for the first few years following. This is AJPW vs Zero-One and starts with a massive brawl before the announcer can identify people, forcing me to Google Image Search the 3 Zero-One guys to find out who is who. The overriding story in this match is that Kashin is an ever bigger dickhead than I thought. Hoshikawa wins me over almost straight away, proving to be a stiff fucker with a lethal arsenal of kicks. Ogasawara is less impressive, barely getting up for two Hayashi backbreakers or a Hijikata judo throw. Kashin's dickery starts early and gets worse, biting the hands of Hoshikawa to break a headlock and pulling the ropes in an attempt to stop Sasaki reaching the ropes to break a submission. I like the fact that Kendo's glory-hunting nearly backfires- Kashin pulls his own partner Hayashi off of Sasaki to try and get the pin himself, only to nearly get pinned following a spear. However, Kashin rallies and gets a cross-armbreaker to get the win for himself, and his team, in a master display of knobbishness.

Tengu Kaiser vs Akio Kobayashi
I've never seen either of these chaps, so this is a new one for me. Kaiser has a sort of Hayabusa look going on, though the mask features a curious looking ski jump nose. The match is pretty bloody poor, all due to Kobayashi, who offered nothing more than a few kicks and was happy to plod about in between them. Kaiser slipped while attempting a springboard move, but was a lot crisper with his kicking and selling, and hit a dazzling Phoenix splash-esque move to win. I got the impression Kaiser could have a good match with a better opponent. This was four minutes but felt much longer.

Masato Tanaka & Kohei Sato vs Daisuke Ikeda & Takashi Sugiura
This is another interpromotional match, this time Z1 vs NOAH, and all four men go at it from the opening bell. Tanaka ends up getting involved in slugfests with both Ikeda and Sugiura, and end up winning both of them. Sato looks like a gangly kid compared to the others and it's no surprise that he ends up as face-in-peril, taking a spike piledriver on the floor. This leads to a fun spot where Ikeda and Sugiura keep picking Sato up from the mat, only to club him back down Demolition-style. The tag sees Tanaka come in like there is Hell to pay, but soon he too is getting beaten by the NOAH team. The second hot tag of the match leads to an exciting ending sprint where all four men are in and out of the ring, all hitting moves that could conceivably finish it: Sato hits a huge German suplex on Ikeda, Tanaka hits a Superfly splash also on Ikeda, who blocks his second attempt with a musclebuster that also only gets two. The finishing sequence sees Sugiura dominating Tanaka, including dumping over his shoulder him onto his neck, only to get hit with a Roaring Elbow for the flash pin. Unlike Kaiser/Kobayashi which felt twice as long as it was, this felt much shorter than it actually was with all four men looking impressive.

Matt Ghaffari, Steve Corino & King Adamo vs Yoshiaka Fujiwara, Wataru Sakata & Katsuhisa Fujii
Corino's team are an odd bunch, Adamo being a tubby grass-skirt wearing savage and Ghaffari being a massive former Olympian. The opening moments see Corino stooging like an old pro for the Japanese team, working a fun headlock spot with the veteran Fujiwara, then exchanging (and losing) strikes with Fujii, who seemed to be working a striker gimmick. Adamo plays the part of a simpleton well (imagine Eugene in Umaga's body), even if he manages to almost botch a stinkface by missing Fujiwara's head. The story behind the match is that the Japanese team are almost powerless against Ghaffari, due to both his size and his Olympic wrestling background, though his moveset consists almost entirely of shoddy looking throws. There is a fun spot where Ghaffari is about to finish off Sakata, only for the simple-minded Adamo to blind tag himself in, to the rage of Ghaffari. However, Ghaffari does pick up the win later with a splash (on which he gets no air) on Sakata. The story and comedy took priority over the ringwork here, but it was at least entertaining.

Yoshihiro Takayama & Hirotaka Yokoi vs The Predator & Jimmy Snuka Jr
Oh great, it's Deuce. We get a pre-match interview from the Predator where he essentially threatens to beat Takayama to a pulp. In the ring, we get to see the full extent of their animosity as they start off with...a test of strength. Then another one, and what promised to be a violent brawl ends up coming off as a damp squib. Against all odds, it's Snuka who impresses most, dominating the smaller Yokoi and hitting a decent slingshot legdrop, before tying Yokoi up in the ropes with a headscissors. Even when he messes up by slipping on an attempted springboard move, he doesn't retry the spot, but opts instead to simply run at his opponent and hurl himself at him. The match follows a basic formula which sees Predator always dominate Yokoi and Takayama always dominate Snuka, but they're pretty much evenly balanced against each other. Takayama gets the win with a big German suplex on Snuka, but Predator takes exception to this and brawls into the crowd with Takayama, sadly showing more aggression and gumption than at any point during the match.

Naoya Ogawa vs Tom Howard
Howard is representing UPW from California, and looks like the guy you'd get to play Guile in a straight-to-DVD Streetfighter II movie. After Howard opens the match by blowing smoke in Ogawa's face (a nice dick move), they work a quick exchange where Ogawa counters all Howard's moves, but Howard takes over with a nice thrustkick to the jaw. Howard puts Ogawa in a leglock which seems to last for hours, as Ogawa S-L-O-W-L-Y inches towards the ropes, but makes absolutely no effort to sell any pain in his leg. Howard then locks in a sleeper, which nearly puts Ogawa away, only for Ogawa to power up and hit Howard with 6 (6!) consecutive STO's to prompt cornerman Steve Corino to throw in the towel. An absolute waste of my time, Howard looked decent in parts, but Ogawa brought nothing to the match.

Shinya Hashimoto & Shinjiro Otani vs Keiji Mutoh & Arashi
Main event time, and it has a definite big match feel, the crowd are noticeably buzzing. Hashimoto and Mutoh start, which only heightens the anticipation, as they gingerly feel each other out, before both tagging out. Likewise, Arashi and Otani, though being more attacking than their partners, don't commit themselves too much, until the Mutoh/Arashi team get an advantage on Otani, at which point their offence really kicks off with a Mutoh Power Elbow. They then work over the leg of Otani, with Mutoh hitting some vicious looking dropkicks to the knee followed by a figure four. Hashimoto is brought in on a hot tag, and successfully blocks a Shining Wizard attempt by Mutoh, but gets caught with a Dragon Screw which puts him in peril. A returning Otani works over Arashi in the corner with some NASTY bootscrapes and a facewash, and the match really starts to heat up. All four men end up in the ring and all four men up on the mat following a series of dropkicks. Arashi works over Hashimoto to allow him to hit a powerbomb on the big man, and Mutoh leaps over the pinfall attempt to hit a huge Shining Wizard on Otani, who was trying to stop the pin, though Arashi only gets two. Mutoh hits another Wizard on Hashimoto then, in a nice touch, ties up Otani with a figure four, leaving Arashi free to hit a top rope splash on Hashi for two. This leads to the ending sequence where Hashimoto gets Arashi in a triangle choke, while Otani has Mutoh in a chickenwing next to them. In a really nice touch, Mutoh keeps fighting, not to escape the hold he's in, but to get an arm over to break the choke on Arashi, really selling how much trouble he knows his partner is in, which is emphasized when Arashi submits moments later. Really enjoyable main event match with really big match atmosphere AND a satisfying conclusion.