superkix

Anjoh's such a chickenshit in this match, hanging onto the ropes as as he can, which is understandable, I guess -- considering Severn wants to throw his ass around the ring with suplexes. Right out of the gate, Anjoh fires off kicks but when Severn tries to grab him for a throw, Anjoh smarly retreats to the ropes. I like how Severn pushes Anjoh's hand off the mat when he's trying to escape a choke hold. There was one point when Severn had control of the ankle and Anjoh's squirming and dropping knees and trying to get out but Severn holds on.Severn looked really strong here with all his throws and slams, and unfortunately, Anjoh wasn't as his best here so it really was a Severn squash. That brutal finish looked like Severn was trying to snap him in half. Good showing from Dan the Beast.

Miyato thankfully brings his usual feisty energy to the match, cracking Allen with kicks, but B.N. Allen sucks. He can't take a suplex. He doesn't really get the style. He does his one judo throw into the armbar because that's all he's got. Shitty.

Never gets anywhere because Silver fucks his knee up and the ref calls it. Hard to tell what exactly happened, or if it was a previous injury, but Burton's excited he got the technical win.

The best match in their series so far, continuing the tradition of sloppy charm. They scrap around, both on their feet and on the mat. Takayama's strategy is largely the same: knee knee knee. But when Kanehara catches one, he dumps him with a big waterwheel slam and tries to choke Takayama out. Takayama looked more comfortable here and he definitely got to shine, hitting a big capture suplex, popping Kanehara in the face with a flying knee, and an awesome German. Kanehara looked good here, too, with his kicks and counters - loved him catching Takayama's kick and high kicking him in the head with the opposite leg. Or the leg catch slap. Really good desperation there at the end between the holds and counters and wild strikes -- at one point, Kanehara kicks Takayama in the nuts to set up a leglock. Kanehara hits his own German and finishes Takayama off with a choke. Fun stuff!

This was probably the best match on the show and the interactions between Albright/Takada were more heated than their singles match. A slow start with two guys not great on the ground (Takada/Albright)...on the ground...but luckily, Yamazaki's energy is great, Fleming isn't in long enough to stink it up and comes off a little meaner here than usual. Albright throws suplexes, Yamazaki throws suplexes, and finally, Takada and Fleming dick around a bit before Takada taps him with the armbar.

A disappointing match with Kaki working a little less slappy and eating a shit ton of knees from Anjoh -- great knees, of course, but Kaki looks weak and nervous, taking more strikes than he's able to dish out. Anjoh mocking Kaki's big open hand attempt is such a dick move and it's great and then Kaki immediately gets kicked in the junk. I mean, throughout the match, you're really rooting for Kaki to just give it to Anjoh but Anjoh doesn't take much at all and quickly submits Kaki with a nasty facelock.

Dan Severn, 36 years old, makes his pro-wrestling debut and he ain't fucking around because the first thing he does is kill Miyato with a German suplex. He gets some nice throws and slams on Miyato, who, in turn, gets a pretty sweet belly-to-belly of his own. Severn taps him with a side STF and that's all she wrote for a perfectly decent sub-five minute squash.

Big Gene Lydick makes his debut and while he's got a ton of energy, he's all over the place and his execution isn't very. Him vs. Takayama to open looked like two drunk dudes trying to grapple and fight. Lydick just wants to SLAM and eats a bunch of Takayama's knees to try and grab him. It wasn't pretty but it was pretty fun. When Silver gets the tag, he's firing blindly and knocks down Takayama, and later, hits a neat German suplex on Kanehara. Kanehara looked decent here and got better exchanges out of Lydick -- I liked him repeatedly dragging Gene down in chokes. It's hard to tell what Silver won with - maybe a dragon sleeper? - but I like Silver a lot now.

Great match and definitely the most reminiscent of UWF 2.0 out of any of the UWFi stuff so far. That opening was fantastic and I loved all the crowd reactions to the constant counters and reversals on the mat through the first couple of minutes. Tamura plays the brash young underdog, Yamazaki the stubborn veteran, and together, the competitive nature, the frustrations, the teases -- everything worked, for the most part. There were a couple of times when it felt a little long in the tooth but then they're turn it up again, and Yamazaki would fly at him with a spinning heel kick. There's a great moment toward the end when Tamura is smacking the hell out of Yamazaki when he's stuck in a leglock but Yamazaki ain't letting go. Then Yamazaki's like fuck it, let's finish this, and he's able to hit the German suplex but Tamura finally taps him with the armbar. Really good stuff here.

Okay, we've got fiery underdogs in Miyato and Kakihara, we've got suplex machine Albright, and we've got...Mark Fleming. 3/4 ain't bad. At this point, I don't know if you can call Fleming a better wrestler than Tom Burton. Maybe, maybe not. Miyato's trying to show off but unfortunately, Fleming isn't the best canvas to work with. At least when Kaki comes in, he just pops him a bunch and high kicks him in the head twice for the KO. Albright doesn't even tag in. Not a good match #4.

A big wet fart. Seriously, JT Southern puts on a better match than the Iron Sheik. He doesn't do anything but hang on the ropes and complain to the ref about Anjoh's strikes. And Anjoh's just trying to get him to bite, to do anything. The fans want it, Anjoh's begging, the Sheik finally hits a German suplex but that's it. Anjoh quickly taps him with the toehold. Not a good match #3.

Okay, this has potential, right? Silver comes out kicking hard, trying to be aggressive but Takayama quickly puts him in a single leg and Silver is in PAIN. Takayama starts whipping him but Silver's knee gives out and that's it. Game over. Not a good match #2.

A seven minute match is still too long for Tom Burton. He's blown six minutes in but then again, Kanehara keeps kicking him and Burton tries slamming his way to victory, tries a couple of single leg crabs, but he sucks and Kanehara taps him with the armbar. Not a good match #1.

Koji Kitao's match against Kazuo Yamazaki was so good because Kitao was this looming man-child with judo skills and when he got to let loose, it was a lot of fun. This was not that because it's the Takada show...but that's okay because it has the boss legit KO'ing Kitao with a kick to the head. Not a good match #5.

Albright representing Nebraska, USA who loves to clobber and suplex but otherwise, doesn’t have a whole lot else going on, especially on the ground. Takada isn't very good on the ground either so there's a lot of lags in the pacing to kill time. Not a great match but it had some fun moments and by the end of it, the fans were sold. Albright's definitely working lighter against Takada but Takada gets in some stiff shots, like that knee to the mouth. When Takada his the backdrop suplex, the Russian commentator's "oi yoi yoi" is muy bueno. Albright finally kills Takada with a belly-to-belly to set up the finishing stretch and Takada's classic finish.

Anjo’s already a complete dick, too fucking cool to shake Yamazaki’s hand. I liked the opening with the heated tie up in the corner and Anjo squirming out of the early German attempt. Kind of slow in parts when Anjo's in control but then Yamazaki will grab him with a sort of German suplex slam, or Anjoh will crack him with some pretty nasty knees. He continues laying into Yamazaki with strikes, looking a little glazed over toward the end, but then he swoops around with the German suplex hold and rolls him up with a neck crank for the submission. Not a great match but it had some very good moments.

We all know Tamura could have smoked this dude in under 2 minutes but instead, he plays underdog to Steve's pseudo-amateur Basic Holds 101 and looking around like a dumbass when he's got Tamura in a hold. He does throw a German suplex on Tamura but taps in the end to the double wristlock as he should.

This was dumb but not all that bad. Fleming’s got one move --- the double arm suplex -- so obviously he’s going to go for that. But he's just a big sloppy power dude and Miyato couldn't do much with his size except kick. Fleming throws a couple of suplexes and uses his shitty STF to finish him off.

This was really pretty good. Mark Silver is such a lughead but unlike a guy like Burton, he's got more heart and a bit of a vicious streak. Nasty chokes and big kicks and slams. At one point, he repeatedly boots Kanehara in the head. Kanehara hasn't quite clicked yet but he was able to try out some new submission holds against SIlver. But yeah, this was kind of the Mark Silver show - he hits a belly to belly into the neck crank, clobbers him with a lariat, throws him with a big ass German suplex. I mean, the way he dumps him and stumbles around looking like a total klutz is a big plus for Mark Silver. He gets Kanehara in a pretty gnarly single leg crab but Kanehara's in the ropes and the match ends in a draw.

Look, Burton is bad. I sound like a broken record at this point but yeah, this match isn't very good. I get it - Burton's definitely trying to do something but he just can't. But I do love that he's kind of this big baby, in the sense that he's quick to roll out of the ring when things aren't going his way. Takayama kills him with a German and keeps on kicking until Burton decides he's had enough.

A little all over the place but it had its moments, mostly revolving around fiery babyface Iizuka smacking George and SSM in the face a bunch and then getting thrown around. That opening lock up and arm drag by Takano was slick, and in general, Takano was a lot of fun, albeit a bit sloppy but still, him stomping the shit out of Iizuka was great. We get some suplexes down the stretch and a hot Choshu tag to finish it out. He blasts Takano with that first sick lariat but eventually hits a second to pick up the victory.

This turned into a pretty cool little underdog story. Not much of a start with Hase letting Iizuka do some groundwork before he starts prepping the neck for the uranages, breaking out the Gotch-style piledriver for the occasion. He tries for the uranage but Iizuka hits one instead out of desperation, following up with a second and trying for a third but getting caught in the GIANT SWING! Loved Iizuka trying to break Hase's bridge as he's trying to escape the armbar attempt. Hase finally works his way around, even stands on Iizuka's face, but Iizuka is still maintaining arm control. The fans light up when Iizuka grabs the crossface chickenwing off of Hase's failed uranage attempt but in the end, Hase gives up on the uranage and instead, hits a cool wrist-clutch suplex, a German throw, and the Northern Lights suplex hold to put the fiery Iizuka away.

For a 30 minute draw, I thought this was pretty great and they did a good job of keeping the matwork exciting. Anjoh is easily the second best guy in UWFi at this point behind Tamura, and they always manage to have competitive tag exchanges up to this point. Tons of neat transitions and defense -- like Anjoh, for example, blocking the single or his transition into the double wristlock attempt, to which Tamura powers out and takes Anjoh over with a big fireman's carry. Lots of cool moments peppered throughout; Anjoh's reflex knee to Tamura's head, the shoot figure-four into the STF, Anjoh hitting the fisherman buster and Tamura immediately snagging the double wristlock. Loved Anjoh getting heat for dropping those knees to Tamura on the ropes. I thought Tamura's rubber-legged selling towards the end of the draw was really good, with Anjoh running in with these shitty low kicks, trying to take him out. By the final couple of minutes, they're both exhausted and Tamura tries for one last choke off the big waterwheel drop but the time expires. Good stuff!

Well, this didn't last long. If you thought Allen had less to do in his first match, well, he gets suplexed more. Albright immediately belly-to-bellies him, Allen delivers a nice judo throw into the armbar attempt but can't seal the deal before Albright belly-to-bellies him two more times and submits him with the rear necklock. Not very good.

The majority of the match is spent between Fleming and Cox, with Cox able to show off a bit with some of his offense (fireman's carry, legwhip, single leg crab) and Fleming not being very good but blasting Cox with the POUNCE~! Then Takada dominates Cox for awhile and puts him away with the armbar. Yamazaki didn't even get into the match -- what the heck?!