GOTNW

Joshi is often associated with crazy spots, and Hojo has taken her share of them (in this match you had the camera zoom in on the welts on her lower back) and it's kind of bizarre to ground stomping back strikes and a reckless apron bumb in the same match. I'm not so sure about Kyona's corner splashes either, she's not big enough that that would carry the move by itself and she doesn't make it look that good so it's just kinda there. I would agree this was a well built match. There was plenty of selling and character work that allowed the match to flow well, the strike exchanges were crisp and tight and they didn't dwell on them, Hojo executed a lot of cool offence like the twisting neckbreake, the spinning backhand and all the elbow strikes and drops variations she did. My favourite moments of the match were when Kyona fired up after Hojo had repetaedly elbowed her and just kind of showed her into the ropes and exploded with hammerfists, they're not exactly Vader-level so it was more symbolic than just a straight up explosion of violence (that would've probably helped it make it an evne better match) but it was good enough and a nice change of pace from the usual nonsense in jwres matches. There was also the spear counter, which some would probably criticize as a botch, and whether or not that was the case or not it made it look more realistic which is always nice. And my favourite moment of them all had to be Hojo eating a Lariat only to push Kyona into a pin as soon as she fell down, a surprising moment that gets across a wrestler's perservance and determination really good without hurting anything in the match as Kyona who had been the last one to execute a move before that was the first one to get up. Finish got a little nearfall heavy but they salvaged it with the struggle over the top rope, and I certainly won't complain about a brutal headbutt being used for a big transition. ***1/4

One of the talking points on this board I've found eye-rolling has been OJ's that UWFi was "fake" shoot style and RINGS was the real deal. He has his stylistic preferences and maybe he just deems the RINGS crew better workers, but until the Vader/New Japan stuff kicked in the RINGS stuff is every bit as if not more flashy than UWFi. You see it in the way they built drama, the use of rope breaks, knock downs, numbers of convoluted submissions used in matches and ways they're set up and so forth. I mean Volk Han matches are awesome but they're not how real combat looks. This felt like the match from the RINGS OJ was talking about. I've laid out my suspicions on some of Tamura's MMA matches being works or at least having worked elements (the RIZIN tag and his fight vs Hideo Tokoro) but this is really a match that should at least be properly discussed and remembered. A very sophisticated attempt at using all the new knowledge they'd acquired at the time in how real fighting works and using that to try and con people into making them think what they are watching is real but still allowing them to manipulate their emotions. So yeah-pro wrestling, but at a level unseen anywhere else. Most of the match is almost completely devoid of drama-the focus is on on how they defend against submissions and get into positions for them as much as it is on the techniques themselves. The pace and the disposition of the action mimick a fight very well and they walk the line of not doing stuff that would make it look fake and doing enough stuff to keep you both invested and entertained perfectly. Tamura's flurry ruled, and Kohsaka's selling was more reminiscent of a boxer going down from a body blow than Volk Han doing the same thing. The finish fascinates with its simplicity-it may be the greatest comeback I've ever seen in a wrestling match. The reaction it garnered was amazing, as was the execution of the whole thing. I can see some stuff here being a little hard to get into for people who aren't big on real grappling but the finish is something that I can't see not universally resonating with fans of pro wrestling. ****3/4

I've seen a lot of Inokiism stuff, some of it it good, some of it is weird, inexplicable and beyond ratings, I fully expected this to be chaotic and unconventional but the match ended up being absolutely amazing as well. The first thing that came to mind with the length is the Ikeda-Ono match, but this one is just better and I don't think it's close even. Saying this would be hailed as a MOTYC by the crew that pimps Futen and Battlarts if it had happened that would almost be instinctive but also undermine everything this match was. It was more than that. It was a pastiche of the Futen violence, the morality, stable wars and art of the no finish (best showcased in the 80s wrestling everyone loves so much) and real life politics blurring the line between reality and pre-determination. If you haven't seen it I urge you to watch the match with an open mind. If you have, I'd urge you to rewatch it since 2002 was a long time ago, you're distanced from the impact of the match on the business side of things now, and also your taste has probably changed, I don't think I've seen a single person talk about this *match* since I started discussing prowres online, so it's not exactly like it's been mandatory watching for now. The rest of the review includes spoilers and I think it's better to watch it without reading them, but suit yourself. When Kensuke knocked Ogawa in the beginning of the match it was not only a wonderful moment of violence, but also incredibly symbolic. We had seen Ogawa in positions of peril-but it was the first time someone had done something so shocking and so direct as to just smack him and start mounting on him. It was a true moment of peril-one after which it only made sense his stablemates would run into the ring. That and it was before the bell making it illegal. The next couple of minutes are as tense as any match I've ever seen, and really sophisitcated and simulatenously barbaric. The violence of a takedown, a throw, a punch and a kick are all well known, but displaying that well in a worked environment can be tricky and they absolutely nailed it. I remember hearing Jim Cornette saying something about how a criteria for a perfect match included everyone believing it was real-which sounded silly coming from him-but I don't think there's a match that's as good at that as this one that didn't turn into a real fight. And when Ogawa started shoot kicking Kensuke you even start questioning that-the images of the 1999 incident are just too visceral to ever be forgotten. But here Kensuke recovers, and goes after Ogawa, and hits him and throws him and makes him retreat, which is analogous to a count out victory over Andre, even if the scoreboard may have had it as a no contest. ****1/2

This would've been a great match if Nagata was as good as Murakami. The opening was sketchy as that was where Nagata had his shine, and it had him do weird slap-claps on Murakami's back, bad looking worked spots and just generally offence that would look bad for a house show tag, let alone a big Dome match, and his timing in general seemed off. Then we get to the meat of the match, which is Murakami's beatdown, and it rules every bit as much as you'd hope, he beats the hell out of Nagata with all sorts of awesome punching and kicking variations, awesome throws and so on. May not be the best one he's ever done, but still totally badass. Then it's time for Nagata's revenge and he amps up the violence, laying in some nice kicks, but it's clear his ideas on how to project violence without actually hitting someone aren't nearly as good as Murakami's, he can throw a good kick, and he can even throw a good knee once in a while, but when he's forced to rely on them too much he wasn't able to maintain that level of believability for long, when he was on the outside throwing knees that Murakami bladed for they looked quite good, but by the time he went for them again in the ring they'd already started looking head scratching. His headbutts were just disappointing, the idea of him throwing headbutts so the blood spills from Murakami's forehead to his was cool, but the actual headbutts weren't very good looking, someone like Akiyama can make headbutting his own hand look way more violent than Nagata does actually connecting with the move (maybe that's the problem-if you connect you need to go all the way ala Ikeda/Ono while working allows more room for misdirecting the viewer). I did like the finish a lot-Murakami continuing to get up despite beating to a pulp was something resembling a movie more than a wrestling match, maybe it's just that his facial expressions are so big and memorable that one can't help think he'd make a great villain, it was quite well done, Murakami's last flurry of throwing desperation shots looked exactly like he was gassed/spent, and when he went for a throw Nagata easily countered it with a Backdrop. I also enjoyed how the crowd bit on the penalty kick as a nearfall because they'd teased it in the beginning and they were conditioned to matches ending at any time because of Inoki's insanity, and the post-match brawl was lovely, I almost expected them to shake hands or show some kind of respect when they kneeled in front of each other but instead they just slapped the taste out of each other's mouths and it turned into a gang war. Not on the level of their 2002 classic but still very much worth watching. ***3/4

Around top 50

I've made my peace with what modern New Japan is and try to make use of my time and watch matches with an open mind and distance myself from the hype surrounding them since I'm so apart from the way most people watch these matches that I'd just be a waste of time to get into useless arguments. I enjoyed the match-about as much as I could without getting emotionally invested in it whatsoever. To say they did nothing for the first 20/30 minute or so would just be wrong-they did a lot of stuff. There was some teasing of the big moves that would come latear, a perfectly logical thing to do when you're working such a long match, and there were some big spots. What they cared about was those big spots. Inbetween it felt like they were just kicking things off a bucket list-ok, we do the headlock now, now the armdrags, now we're gonna go outside....and so on. They went through a lot of stuff without giving any of it meaning or establishing any sort of narrative. And I'm the last person to cry about "storytelling" in pro wrestling but if you're working a match this long there should at least be a focus. I didn't see any in this match. You could probably make up one about limbwork but the reality is that it just happens 80/90% of wrestling moves are done on the head/neck and back. The true focus of the match was the drama and the physicality of it. And, maybe if I were watching it live, without thinking about wrestling critically, I would've loved the match a lot more. But that's not where I am as a fan, and even just watching it the first time it was clear to me this match wouldn't have the staying power that I look for these days. The six star rating reminded me of the Ibushi/Omega match at the Budokan and how someone said something along the lines of it reaching " a new standard in workrate". I like that match a lot more because it was straightforward in what it was and didn't take almost 50 minutes. I also found the spots a lot more impressive and memorable. There was really nothing innovative or never seen before in this match-I've seen top rope Dragon Suplexes before, I've seen dumb table spots before, every New Japan match these days is built around finishing countering and selective selling. I understand why people think it's the greatest match of all time, because it embodies everything modern New Japan style is, and it was longer and featured more of the elements that people enjoy in it than any New Japan match since the style changed in 2012. Personally I can't say it really connects to what I want out of wrestling or that it even impressed me as a piece of art I might not personally favour but recognize as a peak of this dedication to recklessness and craziness. Not when you have Omega throwing himself from the second rope, rolling backwards and sprinting up, or him and Okada dancing through a German Suplex. Not when you have a million basic strikes inbetween all of those spots that look eye rolling. Not when Okada's big submission looks like a man in a midlife crisis in his first kung fu practice. I commend them for managing to have a match that garnered such buzz and discussion, but as someone familiar with the patterns that sees the important thing here is what works in the moment I give this ***. There were a lot of moments and I like my moments to sink in and be parts of significant control shifts in the match and so on. They have a different vision, that's fine, like what you like.

There have to have been hundreds of threads of finishers where people named moves they thought looked cool, let's try something a little different here. What is the value of finishers in wrestling? Ideally they're memorable big moves you quickly associate with a wrestler making them easily marketable. There is a precedent to them in action movies and real combat sports. But is the amount to which wrestlers stick to them as the only means of finishing the match detrimental to the quality of most wrestling matches? would have to answer with yes there. It's true that are are countless ways you could finish your matches with whatever your finisher may be without it detrimenting from the quality of the match, but the reality is that most wrestlers just aren't going to have the skill to do so. Would anything really be lost if, say, only half of the matches currently being won with finishers in companies/styles that rely on them so heavily were won by them? When so much emphasis is put on the finishing stretches and nearfalls specifically this seems like a very logical thing to do yet it's not something at least I have often seen in recent wrestling. Having big moves the crowd is conditioned to and treats as a big deal certainly helps but I doubt much would be lost if there was just less emphasis on *one* move being such a big deal. Of course someone could it's really the nearfall heavy style that should change, but I'm not sure if that's exactly what I'm aiming at with this thread (a seperate discussion on nearfalls is certainly something that would have legs on its own).

Early on Perkins avoided Ibushi's kicks by checking them, countering them with a Dragon Screw and so on, did a lot of matwork, really leaving an impression he had come prepared to face Ibushi, as in Ibushi's last two matches were him just surviving insane bomb throwing. But with them showcasing Ibushi as the favourite to win the tournament, it'd only make sense that it almost didn't matter if Perkins did all that and went to the trouble of cutting off Ibushi's dive, Ibushi was gonna get it in anyway. Whereas that dive cut-off felt like a big- elaborate counter-move from Perkins Ibushi doing something like staying on the apron and hitting a Springboard Dropkick after Perkins had tried to set-up a dive with his rope trick looked like it just naturally came to him. The context really makes the finishing stretch work-it would seem bloated and cliche that was how they'd worked every match. But even in the last two big Ibushi matches the big nearfalls were based on novelty and them doing a good job of setting them up and not so much, well, *really* buying into that they were going to end the match. And that was the case here. It didn't matter how the Sitout Last Ride was used in the rest of Ibushi's career, in this tournament it was a killshot, and this match was the pay-off that they could have and did afford due to the uniqueness of the tournament. And for Perkins to beat Ibushi at his own game it would take a bunch of bombs of his own, and hitting his biggest bomb over and over again and modifying it and boy did they ever accomplish everything this match could've and should've been. ****

Another very good match from the CWC that had many of the qualitites you'd want in a workrate match without going overboard in excess with big moves and nearfalls and managing to have a coherent and logical narrative. Ibush outclasses Kendrick in direct showdowns so Kendrick avoids them, and follows up on his first big chance with the neckbreaker on the ringpost rope by dedicating his game plan to attacking Ibushi's neck. The way Kendrick uses his surroundings at all times was neat and reminiscent of Finlay, and the structure of this match was reminiscent of the kinds of matches Misawa, Kobashi, Takayama, Akiyama etc. would have in NOAH against lower ranked opponents, where they'd throw out everything to try and make you believe they could pull off the upset. They really hit the sweet spot in giving Kendrick enough to produce the drama without it turning into him hitting big move after big move, and I loved the High Kicks Ibushi used to quickly cut him off in the finishing stretch. ***1/2

A pretty standard trios match-some nice action in the beginning with the rudos doing awesome short clotheslines for cut-offs and the chaotic ending with a bunch of dives was as fun as you'd expect but the middle of the match didn't really offer much, the beatdown was quite formulaic. Fun for what it was. **3/4

I cagematched Joe Malenko and noticed these: http://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=75810&page=2 http://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=75811&page=2 http://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=75812&page=2 http://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=75813&page=2 http://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=75814&page=2 New Japan has had about a million attempts at forming subsidiaries (the latest being LOCK-UP, NEVER and NOAH) and one that's basically MUGA/Dradition ten years before that promotion came to life sounds dope. Has anyone heard of this previously? Was it taped? Any good?

I would probably Liger a lot more if his work connected with me in a way that made me perceive it as more violent. I'm a completely unapologetic lover of Battlarts over the top stiffness, but I love Kanemoto matches just as much, and he doesn't take any shots that make you question the safety of his work, but still resonate as badass and violent. The Liger I want to see sometimes crawls through when he's faced with young lions, working opposite Sano or on an JIP against Kengo Kimura from 1996 where, I have no godly idea why he decided to so thoroughly beat the shit out of Kimura but boy did he ever. This is usually a match up that one would associate with overblown junior wrestling, lots of highspots and nearfalls and all that but the moments where they worked it evenly really made it seem like they could've had a great brawl. As for what it was, Liger had some nice moments of violence in the beginning, but for a match where 95% of his move-set was made of slaps he didn't really give an impression he had mastered slaps as much as you'd get from say chops in a Kobashi match. Asking how stiff should something be worked may be a slippery slop but the violence of most of Liger's offence didn't quite live up to what you'd ideally want out a match structured like this, especially when he *did* lay his shots in at times, making the contrast that much more obvious. Kinda like how Lesnar shoot slapping Reigns at Wrestlemania was a great moment but only made him throwing worked slaps a minute after that much more eye rolling. A fun little match nonetheless. **3/4

I think the biggest problem of the match was its length and how it was structured. It was too long to be worked as a sprint but with how these two were in 2000 it was unlikely they were gong to have a classic structure. So you end up with them meeting in the middle, and Akiyama really takes it to Vader in the beginning, almost shockingly so, completely dominating that portion of the match. And with how Akiyama was positioned it makes sense that they'd showcase him like that, but as Akiyama was doing German Suplexes in the first minutes of the match you can't scale back, and Vader had to get his heat back after Akiyama's shine. So you get a long Vader control segment with a lot of offence but not a lot of urgency, the crowd can clearly tell there's no way they're gonna go the finish and that's after you've had Vader Chokeslam Akiyama on a table and Powerbomb him on the floor. There was really nowhere left for them to go-with what they chose this was probably as well as they could've done, but they made a grave mistake and you could tell that by the crowd reactions. Vader's and Akiyama's offence as well as some of the ideas they came up like Akiyama getting a Dropkick in but Vader quickly cutting him off with an Elbow Drop since Akiyama was still laying, the build to the Exploder, Vader adapting the Chokeslam cover after Akiyama countered that with an Armbar etc. were enough to make it very good, but it didn't manage to go beyond that. ***1/2

A little disappointed by this one, Jax's biggest strength is using her size and throwing people around and beating them up, Banks' biggest strength is her willingness to take dumb bumps, they could've had a much better match though it's hard to blame them for not going all out on a pre-show match. Jax had some nice offence in her lariat-like smashes, Sasha didn't really look good, I legitimately started laughing out loud at how bad her chest slaps to set up the lucha armdrag attempt were. Too much of the match was Jax attempting something, Jax stopping her mid-air and then just gently laying her down before a shove or a push into the corner. Decent but forgettable. **1/2

This definitely wasn't a PWG stlye match. The beginning of the match was worked at a very slow pace with them taking bumps for weak strikes. You don't have 50 thousand fans going insane before the match starts at PWG either, so no need for that portion where you calm them down. And once they started with the workrate they did plenty of selling and didn't just move from move to move, and that there were touches like Styles doing so much cool kicking offence and Cena busting out Lariats and his most ridiculous Prototype facial expressions are probably what made me enjoy it more than their Summerslam match. It was a match very much built around the workrate, and they did have some nice build around their signature spots when they started with it (the Frankensteiner counter to the Backdrop Suplex was neat), but after a while I just began to wonder whether all of the Cena matches from 2011-2013 would really hold up. The submission countering can be interesting to see what stuff they come up with, but for a match really aiming at that excitement and flash it's completely devoid of drama, Cena hasn't been nearly as graceful in his finisher becoming less efficient as Choshu, Misawa and many others have where they'd adapt to it by treating it differently, coming up with other moves and so on. IDK, I hardly see greatness in Cena sloppily hitting dumb Electric Chairs and indy spots. Stlyes' offence wasn't any different either, nothing carried the sense of actually being a threat to ending the match. ***

We will agree to disagree on that one. After a certain amount of pop ups it's hard to take him "dying" seriously-the beatdown simply isn't that devastating if you can get up so many times.

Be interested in hearing about the specific flawsKobashi went overboard with the crying and popping up derailing the point of the finish

The children of Kensuke Sasaki are keeping the tradition of meathead battles alive. I am so glad that in this age of flash and GIFs someone is doing a Masa Saito tribute gimmick, Kitamiya may not be able to do the Omaga/Okada feats of athleticism and do Moonsaults over the guardrail but he has really good basics. So many wrestlers these days don't know how to stomp, kick a lag or throw a bodyslam, all things Kitamiya is great at. Even his legwork was badass. They built a smart match with a beginning, middle and end and a clear trajectory. If there was a criticism I could point at the match it's that shaving a couple of minutes would've made it even better, because it seemed they could produce something REALLY special and making it more concise would've certainly helped. These two put in great effort, keeping their offence varied and also keeping the viewer on his toes, constantly modifying sequences you thought you'd already know how they'd end. When Kitamiya way about to shoot Nakajima off the ropes Nakajima would pull him back in a Headlock and start really wrenching it, when it seemed Kitamiya was gonna Shoulder Block Nakajima Nakajima kicked him in the head and they built to a shoulder block, making everything feel earned. Kitamiya feels so refreshing, here's a guy who turns a Samoan Drop into a holy shit spot and has all these awesome hulk ups and knows how to get the crowd riled up. It comes as a given they worked incredibly stiff. Nakajima's biggest stregnth may be how great his cut-offs are-he really knows how to time and adapt a kicking variation to best match the moment. ***1/2

Yeah, very different from their February match. Suzuki gets in Nakajima's face before the bell, and that he'd put the effort into doing something like that tells you he brought his working shoes that night. There were some issues in the match I could see being polarizing if people cared about NOAH like the legwork and the way Suzuki recovered from the High Kick. Honestly the legwork here wasn't nearly as big of a focus as the armwork was in the February match-it was pretty great while it lasted, the way Suzuki tied Nakajima's leg through the ropes ruled as did his counter to Nakajima's kick he often does as a counter of his own when his opponent is bouncing off the ropes. But that legwork was just another obstacle for Nakajima to overcome here, and the symbolic downfall of Minoru Suzuki in this match is really something special. The desperation in his voice when no one came to help him after the ref bump was great, but even more was the gradual selling of fatigue at the very end of the match. Seeing Suzuki's strikes slowly lose their sharpness and impact was quite the sight. The Misawa tribute spots are often lazy and unnecessary but they never felt as fitting as they did here, especially after the hundreds of elbow exchanges these two had went through. Then you get to the finish itself, and Nakajima is going through all of his big moves but Suzuki just keeps kicking out at one despite the match obviously being lost for him by that point. After Nakajima finally gets a 2.9 count Suzuki fires up one last time before getting a High Kicked for good measure, this is THE type of performance that makes Minoru Suzuki the special performer he is. Nakajima can bring the stiffness and the fire but the wilingness to break so many patterns is what can make a big Minoru Suzuki like this feel so special, him having such a high success rate with the rope run sleeper made Nakajima cutting it off with a quick Superkick that much sweeter. Zero problems with the pacing here-the weird pauses were replaced with extraordinary selling and the crowd bought into Nakajima and the match and responded accordingly. ****

I stand with Kiyoshi Tamura vs Yoshihisa Yamamoto-RINGS 24.6.1999.

I thought about watching 2000 All Japan next but saw this was the next match on the show, and thought you know what, it doesn't even matter if it's good or not, I've already seen most of the All Japan matches anyway and have pretty much made up my mind on all the workers there, this is a match I would've lost my shit for in 2011, let's see how it turned out. And-it turns out it was good, and when you have a good match even a 2017 NOAH crowd will react. Some gauging at the start, one of those quick sequences where wrestlers counter each other's signature moves and then about 16 minutes of strike/kick exchanges, mirror spots and everything that made me love this genre 5 or so years ago. There are holds and selling in there too but they're only in there because they have to be, and they don't go weak holds or stay in them too long or do dumb selling that obviously sets up spots and weak brawling around the arena, they just lay in it kick away at each other. There was a bit too much pinfall attempts for my taste and a dragon suplex no-sell that was what it was, but other than that this was a nice change of pace in being a mostly bullshit-free celebratition of dumb stiffness in wrestling. Kenou had some really nice and quick combinations and I loved how he'd incorporate his Ankle Lock in them grabbing it out of nowhere without becoming too realiant on it in filling time or teasing a near submission that wasn't going to happen. ***1/4

I heard Kotoge had become a heavyweight, and this was one of the first if not the first match he'd had as one, and it's been like two years since I saw a match of his so I was interested to see what it would look like. It was not good. A really terrible structured 25 minute match is not a pretty sight. There was something resembling a narrative with Kotoge using rope pulling, drop toe holds, running attacks and so on while the bigger Shiozaki could get back in control by just chopping him once, but there were so many transitions here that none of them mattered (not that they were creative or really good on their own). Really dry, dull control segments with two guys just going through their move sets and attempting about five thousand pinfall attempts to no reaction. No, no one is going to buy a backdrop suplex or a frankensteiner or a bulldog as a nearfall in 2017 NOAH, and the fact that those moves just get thrown around with no build doesn't help. I have no idea why you'd wrestle a 25 minute match with the goal of establishing Kotoge and not actually have a little more matwork to have the match flow better and also have a proper finishing stretch to hook the crowd since that's the one thing these two would be good at, instead you only get two minutes of them having an exciting match with proper chop exchanges, build around Kotoge's shoot headbutts and so on. I don't know if NOAH has someone equivalent to a road agent that helps lay matches out but if they do he's an incompetent idiot. **

Third time I've watched this match and it only gets better. Ono taking it to Ikeda with brutal punches rules, but there are a couple of other things I've picked up as well. Ikeda firing back with shoot headbutts ruled and there was a moment where Ikeda was just starring at Ono and Ono was desperately punching away at Ikeda trying to knock him down and in those few seconds in which they battled over whether Ikeda was going to headbutt Ono or not I realised I truly do enjoy life and professional wrestling. Ikeda did Headbutt Ono, symbolically showing there is no escaping some things in life. Like the god damn Ankle Lock counter to the kick I've seen a million times in Battlarts matches. But Ono bravely fought back and only got Ankle Locked later in the match with a different set-up. And holy shit that knee to the back of the head. There's a reason PRIDE didn't allow those things. Then you have Ikeda doing a flip senton and an elbow drop for no reason, this just might be the most FUTEN-ish match of them all, and it rules so much. ****

You'd think I'd be the biggest supporter of a Battlarts match but I was slightly disappointed by this, I like Nagai as I do pretty much every RINGS alumni but he is more of a guy Volk Han had a great match with than a great Volk Han opponent and him dominating Ikeda so much was not exactly the ideal way to lay this out. I didn't really buy into his submissions (neither did the crowd), his knee strikes looked weak and he seemed lost at times (like when clearly evaded an Ikeda high kick but sold it like it hit clear and when he awkwardly pushed Ikeda around the ring and hit him with a weak throw). His kicks were fine but he lacked the presence to really make the most out of the structure, he hit some nice spots like the Powerbomb>Leglock combo and chanelling Maeda and Sayama but nothing that would really make me think more of him as a worker or a potential star. Maybe the "Nagai was ahead on points" narrative would have connected to me if Battlarts actualy had a point system It's a little harder to react that way when I've seen Ikeda come back from some downright insane beatings, this was not one of them. ***1/4

Well I can add Takeshi Ono doing a springboard to the list of things I've seen in life. Pretty neat Ono carry job. Not that Hijikata was bad or anything but outside of doing Tenryu spots and working a little more pro style he didn't really leave that much of an impression. Literally the first spot in the match was Ono punching Hijikata straight in the face and knocking him down, you don't get a better hook than that. Ono's punching and kicking combinations ruled, his sliding kick in particular is something definitely worth stealing, incredibly unique and something that would look super efficient in a world where pro wrestling physics would be real. Ono's shaking his leg and trying to escape while in the Fisherman Buster ruled, those moments of struggle really make everything mean more. ***1/4-***1/2