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Hansen/Taue vs. Burning 12/3/99 RWTL Finals HOLY SHIT is the crowd insanely amped for this. Intros haven't started and they are at Kawada vs. Misawa 6/3/94 levels. Hansen/Taue are the massive favorites here. So much so that when Akiyama uses a very Stan Hansen tactic against Hansen he gets booed. And every time Akiyama or Kobashi breaks up a pin the boos just get louder. There is this sublime part of the finishing stretch where Akiyama just took a nodowa on the floor and Taue has him hooked for one in the ring. Crowd is going nuts as it is, but Akiyama is desperately grabbing for the ropes. Taue kicks his hand off, but Akiyama is adamant about not being chokeslammed and scrambles over again. Crowd is losing it as Hansen elbows Akiyama's arms off the ropes, nodowa happens and Akiyama KICKS OUT AT 2.999999 for the most ridiculously nuclear nearfall I've ever seen. Honestly, the crowd makes this match more than any of the wrestlers. And that's saying something with these four in the ring. Post match is pretty sweet too. Kobashi vs. Omori 1/9/2000 So Omori brings his A++++++ game here. He's so very great as the underdog in this match. I mean, he's still dickish and everything, but he's clearly the underdog. He and Kobashi work a nice suplex fight that goes nowhere leading to Omori actually suplexing Kobashi (!!!) after an exchange. Omori gets some good nearfalls. Kobashi hits a powerbomb into a half nelson that Omori kicks out of to massive crowd reaction. Crowd goes into full on support of Omori as he pluckily works to an axe bomber that Kobashi (rare for him) delivers on the kickout, waiting til the last moment. Kobashi and Omori miss their running lariats until Kobashi doesn't miss. Kobashi hits the burning lariat for the 3. Way, way better than I would have expected going in. Omori's selling was pretty spot on too.

Was gonna say, Colon vs. Hansen had some real good fits for this. The bullrope match is freaking awesome.

So that Sullivan piledriver looks all kinds of sloppy and dangerous. The very, very wrong kind of sloppiness.

Burning vs. Untouchables 11/20/99 RWTL So you get the Akiyama heat segment followed by the Ogawa heat segment, then the big finishing run. All well-executed and Ogawa sells his beating like a champ. Still not as good as either of their tag title bouts earlier in the year. But a fun tag match with a hot finish is still a good watch. Kobashi/Akiyama/Shiga vs. Vader/Smith/Kea 11/27/99 JIP to the part where Vader is destroying skinny little Shiga. Because that's just ridiculously awesome. Shiga gets a great, gutsy kickout of a Vader splash (the visual is just horrifying). Crazy 6-man finishing sequence ensues, with Kobashi getting some good offense in on Vader. Kea gets a bit cocky with the ever-spunky Shiga and gets rolled up on a Hawaiian Ace crusher or whatever the Hell he calls it for 3. Kea's offense still does not look overly credible, but he may have injured his knee trying. So at least it's not a question of effort on his part, which in this case is both a good and a painful thing. Seems like Vader wrestling Japanese junior heavyweights is incredibly entertaining. He squashes them like bugs and gives them just enough offense for them to look good for being able to put a dent in the big man. Also, I think it's good to see more than just the big four plus Akiyama, Hansen and Ace. Regardless of how good they are, there is only so much they are going to really do, and after 7 or 8 years of intense rivalries most of it has been done. Probably why the Vader matches seem so freakin awesome, besides the fact that Vader is an incredible worker.

Misawa © vs. Vader 10/30/99 Triple Crown Vader is a lot more apprehensive at first. Then he hits 3 big Germans to make sure Misawa isn't as much of a threat and settles into his offense. Misawa evens the score with 2 Germans and the bombs just keep coming. It's almost as good as the Tokyo Dome match, but not quite there. Misawa/Ogawa vs. Vader/Smith 99 RWTL So Ogawa vs. Vader is all kinds of fun. Ogawa scores a knockdown on the big man. Vader German suplexes Ogawa all the way across the ring. Then he squashes him like the puny little rat-boy he is. But Ogawa is a fighter and won't stay down. Vader is PISSED and beats the everloving shit out of him in the corner. Misawa manages to drag Ogawa back to the corner for a tag, but Vader can handle him, too. Ending run declines a little in quality as the corwd really isn't behind Smith vs. Ogawa and Ogawa repeats himself a couple of times. But the Vader vs. Ogawa stuff was amazing.

Good luck on the early ones. Way too much play by play and not enough attention to detail. Kobashi/Akiyama/Shiga vs. Ace/Barton/Mossman(Kea) 8/29/99 Shiga plays a great sympathetic babyface. Barton is above average at his worst and pretty damn good at best. Mossman is...well, uninspiring unless he's taking a beating. One day I'm sure he'll learn how to involve the audience in his offense. Kobashi vs. Ace is a fun dynamic after they finished teaming. Shiga gets a rare win with a swinging DDT variation. Misawa vs. Takayama 9/4/99 Takayama again starts to bring the stiffness that makes his offense work. Misawa makes him look good. They hit each other a lot and the match is fun. Guess who wins. Kobashi/Akiyama/Shiga vs. Takayama/Omori/Fuchi 10/9/99 So Fuchi fucking rocks. Don't know if I've mentioned that. Omori steps things up and looks good against Akiyama. Shiga is again a great sympathetic babyface, especially against Takayama. Fun 6 man with Takayama pinning Shiga, then a brawl erupting after he cocks off to Kobashi. Burning vs. the Untouchables © 10/23/99 Tag Titles So this here match....this really surprised me. It's like a version of 6/9/95 or 12/6/96, but with Kobashi and Akiyama in the Holy Demon Army role and Ogawa as Akiyama/Kobashi. And it's not quite up to the level of the above matches, but it's really, really, really fucking good if not just above great. Heat is off the charts for the finishing run. Also, Akiyama times his kickout of an Ogawa tigerdriver absolutely dead-on to 2.999999 and the crowd goes freaking nuts. Burning © vs. No Fear 10/30/99 Tag Titles Kobashi doesn't stop glaring at No Fear from the time he sees them. Even during intros, he just leans on the rope glaring at No Fear. No Fear lives up to their name and uses dirty tactics to get the upper hand on Kobashi, then just beta the snot out of him. Then Kobashi snaps. Akiyama has to help the ref pull him off of Takayama in the corner after about the 8th spinning neck chop, and the first few were laid in there good. No Fear doesn't learn and uses this to get the upper hand on Akiyama. Kobashi eventually gets the tag, appears to have some momentum, then No Fear once again go to work. Kobashi has finally had enough and hits a few lariats on Takayama for the win. You know, No Fear is starting to get good. Omori seems like he's finally getting the right balance of hitting hard and cheap heat for his 1980s American heel style. Takayama is great as the big, immovable (and a little immobile) ass-kicker. And it helps that Burning put them over pretty damn good.

Burning vs. Vader/Albright 7/23/99 Vader and Albright giving each other short lariats before the match is great. The big gaijin dominate, Kobashi catches Albright with a surprise lariat while Vader is beating up Akiyama outside. Akiyama holds Vader up just long enough for the 3. Fun tag with lots of big Vader/Albright offense and some nice hope spots. Misawa vs. Kawada 7/23/99 Triple Crown Strike exchanges somehow got way more basic. Longer, but more basic. They bullshit around with some matwork that goes nowhere for a minute or two. Kawada has somehow packed more vicious kicks and knees into his style than before the injury. Some completely heatless pinfall attempts by both off of big stuff (tigerdriver, gamengiri). Ending picks up, but is lacking compared to every other Misawa v. Kawada match I've seen. I'm really starting to miss Baba's match layouts between the Four Pillars.

Burning vs. Ace/Bart Gunn 6/9/99 So Bart Gunn turns out to be pretty serviceable. Turns out Kobashi has the most off night ever in terms of hitting his spots. Also, he feels the need to half nelson Gunn just to welcome him to AJPW. Why he wanted to destroy his own head drop suplexes credibility so badly I'll never know. No Fear vs. Kobashi/Shiga 7/4/99 So No Fear targets Kobashi's busted up nose for 80% of the match. Omori is 95% cheap heat. God I hope he gets better. Shiga finally gets tagged, gets his hope spots in, and Omori pins him. The Kobashi fighting back against a dickish No Fear was good. The rest was...mostly passable. If Omori keeps this up somebody is going to have to explain how the Hell he got big to me. Kobashi vs. Kakihara 7/16/99 Okay, so Kakihara is starting to look like a pro wrestler with a shootstyle base instead of a shootstyle guy taking on a pro wrestler. And he's pretty damn good at it too. Kobashi gives Kakihara just enough to get the fans behind him, then crushes him like a bug. Kawada vs. Takayama 7/17/99 Fun little shootstyle brawl. Takayama looks the best he has so far. Kawada finishes him in a particularly nasty way. Fun.

As far as who was really good at this, I have an (maybe) unexpected response. The Four Pillars were not great at the uber late 2.99999 nearfalls consistently. If you really look at a lof of the big move kickouts, they are barely after 2 in many, many cases. This is one of those areas where I feel that Taue was miles ahead of the other three. Across the board, though, NJ juniors and American wrestling are more consistently late in their near-falls than these guys. And I'm not saying that's a terrible thing, just an odd thing that's been creeping up on me as I watch more. The fact that it very rarely takes a lot away from a match is something I'm working on reasons for. I think fxnj and Petef3 hit on quite a few of them. I'd also volunteer my theory that the punishment they put themselves through on a regular basis may have something to do with not wanting to chance a 3 at the wrong time.

Misawa vs. Kobashi 6/11/99 Triple Crown So the first 10-12 minutes were mostly filer matwork. That's weird right there. It's certainly not BAD wrestling, but it doesn't serve any real purpose. So they go into some strike exchange-y stuff pretty quickly off of that, then Kobashi starts targeting Misawa's elbow arm. Some good "nearfalls" come out of that. Then they go back to your regularly scheduled All japan style stuff for the finishing run, but with a pretty good transition. You'd think this would all not work together real well, but it does. Then they do a ridiculously long finishing sequence that involves throwing every big move in the arsenal at the other guy and them kicking out of it. It gets to be too much if you ask me. Sleeper suplex leading to a lariat, nope, can't get a 3. Tigerdriver 91? You guessed it, just a nearfall. Tiger suplex 85 you ask? Not so much a finishing move as a lead-in. Half nelson? Okay, I'm joking there. When has that ever been more of a midmatch move really? I think you get the idea. Matches like this are why AJPW got the bad rap it did. Too much trying for epic finishing runs, not enough common sense in what was used in them.

So I recently ran the gauntlet of early match matwork and how it comes across (to me) in my viewings. First off, I understand that the catch-as-catch-can stuff came from a different era where it didn't matter so much what you were working, but that you were wearing the opponent down in general so that you could apply the finishing move you wanted. And I actually enjoy that kind of wrestling. But I think that if you're wrestling within the timeframe where working a bodypart because it's injured or it figures into your plans is the norm, you should probably do that. With that in mind, I will get to my point. I really dug Hase vs. Kawada 5/2/99 for the way Hase always found a way, no matter what hold he came up with off of Kawada's actions, to go back to the injured right wrist. I think that's a really smart way to do early matwork and not have it be just filler. Yes, if the opponent goes in for a headlock, by all means reverse it into a hammerlock. Then, if the arm is not your current focus, find a way to transition into something that is. Too many wrestlers will settle for said hammerlock and ride it out until the opponent makes the ropes. Another method I like is one Akiyama used a lot. I get that his was specific to certain wrestling styles, as not all styles of wrestling use a lot of lead-in stuff just to land the big near-fall or pinning move. He would work the leg early, then instead of necessarily using the energy that went into, say, a double arm DDT or a jumping knee or whatnot, hit a low dropkick as part of his lead-in to an exploder or brainbuster, taking advantage of the damage to the injured bodypart to achieve his goal rather than having to use brute force. That kind of thing is actually a good way to work from underneath if you ask me, probably one of the smarter ways. And if the bodypart came into the match damaged, all the better. It's that "for the sake of doing something while we get to the meatier parts of the match" kind of matwork or bodypart work that bothers me. That sort of stuff seems really, really pointless and is one of the reasons I struggle to watch some New Japan stuff. Or some undercard All Japan stuff.

I have no true answer to this question, but I do have a guess. Just looking at the direction both went, it can't have been dumb luck that the stoic, always calm guy got the "Ace" spot that required....stoicism and calm. And the guy who was really good at portraying ruthless violence and raw determination got the role of having to chase Misawa down. I mean, given the above, the story practically writes itself, so it seems like really good casting on Baba's part. Can you imagine the Kawada personality being "The Man" and Misawa having to run him down from a character standpoint?

Kawada/Kobashi vs. Misawa/Taue 6/4/99 Really fun oddball matchup between the Four Pillars. Kobashi vs. Misawa is coming up, so there's that. Watching Kobashi and Kawada alternate leg drops and knee drops on Misawa is pretty friggin sweet. Taue and Kawada having a kick exchange is always fun. Taue setting Misawa up for a frog splash and Kawada setting Kobashi up for a lariat is just odd. Hot crowd for the finish, but why wouldn't they be? Kawada helps Taue up after the match and all four have a little show of unity. Also, if I read right it was All Japan's final farewell to a building they ran in a lot, so this was the special match for that purpose. Fans seemed happy with the send-off, so way to go Baba. Tried to watch the No Fear vs. Team FMW match from earlier on the card. Really, really hard actually. But 15 minutes of pointless back and forth matwork (the only purpose of it was to add time it looked like) killed my desire to watch. As well as my complete lack of motivation to watch Omori or Shinzaki. I can deal with hayabusa and Takayama, especially with a quality opponent. Shinzaki in 99 is well past the point where he should be way better than he is given his athleticism. Omori at least has the future to do something with himself.

Hase vs. Kawada 5/2/99 Tokyo Dome show! Kawada's arm is in a cast. Nasty early uranage. Hase attacks the injured arm from so many different angles, but some of it is really awkward, could be Kawada's ring rust. Looks like an unplanned (and ungodly evil-looking) bump from an uranage, Kawada needs a few to recover. Crowd was dead the whole match up until the brainbuster finish...even for the powerbombs. Did the finish get out or did the fans just figure that out on their own? Vader vs. Misawa 5/2/99 Triple Crown Oh man, this is all kidns of awesome. I'd put it right on the level of the last Kobashi vs. Vader match. Both have this tremendous narrative of the native wrestler continuously chipping away at Vader's defenses until they find a big opening, then exploiting the Hell out of it. Both are great "how they get there" type matches against a monster Vader who is so great in that role. Several of the nearfalls towards the end have an echo to the crowd reaction...holy fuck.

I'll second Ditch on the 2 9/11 All Japan matches. The Ogawa match is surprisingly great, and the Taue/Kobashi match is the best I've seen them have.

Misawa vs. Vader 3/28/99 CC Man does Vader ever beat the shit out of Misawa. Like Misawa gets maybe two minutes of offense in. Vader lays in a brutal beatdown of the Ace, but ends up taking a running elbow for a flash KO and a 3 out of nowhere. Crowd goes nuts, and if that had been Stan Hansen, Kyohei Wada would be a dead man. Kobashi vs. Akiyama 99 CC For being Kobashi's tag partner, Akiyama sure isn't shy about going after the injured knee. Kobashi overdoes the head drops a little, but I'm willing to look past that as the finish is all kinds of hot. Vader at ringside is pretty funny. He's wearing sunglasses, and I really hope that's not an attempt to blend in with the crowd. Kobashi vs. Vader 4/16/99 Okay, this is match of the last 2 years right here. It's only 19 minutes, but it is 19 minutes of fucking awesome. Kobashi plays his role perfect, so does Vader and the crowd eats it all up. This match is ridiculously great.

People ignore a lot of the bad stuff pre-1996 because most of it doesn't make the DVDs they buy. The bad stuff now is right there on the TV or WWE Network.

Burning vs. the Untouchables (Misawa/Ogawa) 3/6/99 Tag Titles The early parts of this match belong to Ogawa. He proves he can go with both Akiyama and Kobashi. Then he becomes the in-peril guy to set up a hot Misawa tag until Kobashi hits a sleeper suplex to kill off the big comeback. Big finishing sequence is really hot, Ogawa even gets in a few really nice nearfalls and the other 3, well, you know they cre pretty capable in those finishing stretches. Taue vs. Vader 3/6/99 Triple Crown Taue actually matches up pretty well with Vader. Until he gets squashed with a splash from the apron after a failed apron nodowa attempt. Then Vader senses blood and kills the midsection with a few running splashes before finishing with a powerbomb. Loving Vader in AJPW, he brings this complete sense of something different to the main event. And he tends to make everything look very, very hurtful without really overdoing it. Short TC match, but very good. I liked Vader putting over Taue after the match. Vader was the first person to hold both the TC and the IWGP Heavyweight title, did not know that. Up next is the Champions' Carnival, featuring that Vader dude. Oh yes.

Misawa vs. Kawada 1/22/99 Triple Crown Great exchange early, looks like it was supposed to be sprint-y build. Then Kawada breaks his arm doing some kind of spinning back chop/fist to the back of Misawa's head. Misawa reacts pretty damn good, getting some elbows and a quick tigerdriver nearfall in place of whatever it is they had in mind. Kawada eventually gets himself back into the match after Misawa leads him through some stuff. They don't blow any of their previous matches out of the water, but it's like the match where Kawada breaks Misawa's face. It's impressive they worked their way to the finish with what happened. Now, I do have several burning questions. #1 WHY THE FUCK did Misawa not call off the ganso bomb spot? Letting a one-armed man drop you vertically on your head has got to be one of the crazier things I've ever seen. #2 Given that the spot happens, why did they not just go with the 3 on that? I get the idea they wanted the brainbuster to be considered dangerous for the future, but really? You're going to tempt fate twice? Crazy, crazy dude Misawa was. That's not to take anything away from the amazing effort put forth by both, just...couldn't they have hacked off the last minute or so and called it on that? Anyway, after the match Misawa needs a little help getting to the back, probably to get his spine decompressed again. Kawada has an ice pack tied to his arm while he's still in the ring. I get this feeling the Kobashi eye injury has something to do with the finish of the Triple Crown match with Misawa last year. Something tells me the way they wrestle is getting a little out of hand and could maybe have been dialed back a bit.

I have to agree with the above poster on things like RoH and "head dropping epics". I've always had trouble watching American indy guys try real hard to emulate puroresu guys by throwing hard elbows and doing dangerous moves. It just seems so overly contrived to me. And if you've read anything from 1995 on in my All Japan topic you know how I feel about head drops being used liberally. I mean, if you look at 6/3/94, there are very, very few head drops. It's been months since I watched it, but I think there are 3 at most. And each one is done for a very specific reason. The truly sad part of 1990s All Japan and 2000 and later Japanese wrestling (to me) is how they took the obvious stuff from AJPW, the head drops and the strike exchanges, and started using them with no thought or attention paid to the why and where in the match they happened. It's as if they watched all of the out of control Kobashi stuff and ignored the early Misawa/Kawada matches (and ignored Taue completely). I mean, when you really get into it, Taue very rarely stayed in strike exchanges too long. H'd either go with a big running big boot or standing enzuigiri, or a choke toss after a few chops that had no effect. Because he knew his strikes otherwise were not up to snuff with what was coming back at him. So he changed it up according to what Akira Taue did well. That's the kind of thing that never registered with all the Japanese and other wrestlers around the world who started doing strike exchanges. It's very much along the same lines as something I read (and agree with) in the Triple H thread. He certainly loves his heroes and tries his best to do what they did in the ring. But he never really got into why they did it and when they did it, and why they chose that moment to do it. So it ends up coming off as a cheap knock-off of that thing that he loves so much. he looks like he's going through the motions of it, because he is. Same goes for those who take 1990s All Japan stuff and put it into their wrestling just to put it in there. Don't get me wrong, I know there are fans out there that think long match + head drops = epic. And I know there are fans who think everything that comes out of Japan is sooo much better than wrestling from the States. I'd like to think that this particular corner of the internet doesn't deal as much with that kind of wrestling fan. Sure, people have their preferences, but I would say that most people here keep a fairly open mind about wrestling and are willing to give things a second or third look if enough other posters call it good. And most are willing to take another look at something they consider great if enough other people talk about the things that aren't right with it.

Holy Demon Army vs. Burning 1/7/99 Tag Titles Kawada is getting his leg worked over after a big clip. Kobashi, taped up head and all (his left eye) is recovering from something. Kawada finally gets the tag and the Holy Demon Army work over Kobashi for a while, then Akiyama. Burning gets their big run of stuff, we end up with Taue vs. Kobashi. Kobashi and Taue hit lariats at the same time, Kobashi follows with a second to take the titles away. Good tag match, but too much Kobashi fighting spirit crap. Also, when a wrestler tapes an injury, they ought to put a big red target on the tape. Kobashi vs. Vader 1/15/99 Vader's entrance is pretty sweet, menacing the crowd with a chair. Kobashi tries playing Vader's game throughout, brawling rather than doing his thing. Kobashi does hit a sweet vertical suplex on Vader. Vader crushes Kobashi like a bug with a splash and Kobashi looks like he's gonna puke. More Kobashi fighting spirit and the match kind of loses me. The Vader moonsault brings me back as Vader hits that for a nearfall, then two of those vaulting body splashes off the first rope for a nearfall, then a jumping splash off the second rope for three. I think vader just took inches off of Kobashi's stomach. A concerned Akiyama tells reporters how Kobashi is kind of fucked up after the match (I think, I don't know Japanese), and Vader complains that gaijin don't get chances at the Triple Crown in a somewhat confused manner. Match had a little unfamiliarity at certain points, but was definitely a fun brawl.

Hansen/Vader vs. Misawa/Ogawa 11/14/98 RWTL Immediately upon seeing the matchup I thought of a Frank Caliendo joke about odd actor pairings in movies. "Robert Deniro, Al Pacino and Richard Dreyfuss in, "Guess Who Got His Ass Kicked." And oh boy, does Ogawa ever get the beatdown thrown on him for every second he is in the ring. Misawa tries to fight off the monster gaijin team after Ogawa has been elft for dead, but Vader squashes him like a bug too. Holy Demon Army vs. Misawa/Shinzaki 1/15/99 There is a tag title match before this one I will watch, but tonight I am in short match mode. Kawada and Misawa have some truly great, intense exchanges that are freaking amazing. Shinzaki...well, let's not talk about him too much because he was passable here. Misawa lays into Kawada late to set up the Misawa/Shinzaki control segment and avenge himself for a few earlier thrashings. Taue decides that he's seen enough and clears out both members of the opposite team with nodowas. Kawada finishes Shinzaki with a powerbomb, without that stupid praying shit beforehand. 1998 was pretty sweet. Kobashi did really well except for the Akiyama match for not giving in to his bad tendencies. Kakihara got a little more confident and his stuff with Kawada was great. Ogawa had a knock-your-socks-off great match with Akiyama. Vader showed up and kicked the crap out of Ogawa and Misawa. All very good things. Wish I had more complete RWTL stuff given the teams involved, but 1998 was actually better than 1997 for the pre-RWTL tours as far as I'm concerned.

I would say pre-1996 easily. But if you move that up to 2001 as suggested earlier it makes it even more compelling.

Misawa vs. Kobashi 10/31/98 Triple Crown I loved this match. In fact, I liked it better than either 1997 match. Less senseless head drops, only a couple of really questionable nosells, and a slow build to a nuclear hot finish. Kobashi working the arm early for as long as he does was pretty pointless, I'll take that away from it. Misawa, oddly enough, blows a couple of spots. We find out after the match why when he has 6 or 7 other wrestlers decompress his fucking spine. I think the thing to take away from that is that every one of the Four Corners, Misawa more than the rest, put a terrible amount of wear and tear on themselves to work this way in the usually very controlled manner that they did. I can only hope that the wrestlers who work in puro today and deal with a far more head-drop centric style understand how to do it a little safer. Otherwise you're going to see a lot of real problems for big names in puroresu as time goes on.

Kobashi/Shinzaki vs. Misawa/Omori 10/24/98 Misawa vs. Kobashi a week before the big one. Clipped to Hell, but given that it was Shinzaki and Omori I'm thankful. Kobashi uses the burning hammer to *gasp* pin Misawa, Must have been the first time he used it, since whatever the awesome play-by-play guy's name is calls it a backbreaker. Holy Demon Army vs. Takayama/Kakihara 10/31/98 Okay, whoever's entrance theme that plays for the UWFi guys has a kickass theme. Muddy Waters baby! And then the Kawada theme comes on, trying to decide which song is cooler. Takayama is so very not over going into this. kakihara is, and the match has a lot to say about why. Tak really doesn't have the confidence in his kicks yet. And his chops and elbows are less stiff than Taue's. When you are in matches with guys like Kakihara and Kawada, weak kicks stand out (see: Akira Taue). His knees are big, but all he is are knees and suplexes at this point, and being able to take damage like a tank. Kakihara is great as the cocky, quick shootstyle guy playing tag with Kawada. Kawada plays his game a while, while Taue tires of it very quickly and gets in close enough to do his power stuff. Kawada doing his slow burn on Kakihara is always fun to watch. Holy Demon Army isolates Takayama and really throw a beating on him to set up the nodowa for 3. Tomorrow is that one match. Between these two kind of well-known guys. I think it goes kind of long.