superkix

There's a good sense of urgency throughout. Again, Bobchick looks very doofy but, in fact, he's pretty legit. Shame he only had like five pro matches before he retired. Kanehara manages a very nice front neck chancery takeover, and then feeds Greg plenty of kicks and knees and a shoot enziguri. He counters Greg's reverse armbar with a rear naked choke and when that doesn't do the trick, he taps him with the armbar. Okay match.

The crowd is into it but it doesn't get past the "okay" mark. Burton is sort of the underdog here against the bigger, suplex happy Lydick, who absolutely destroys Burton with a high angle German and taps him with the armbar. See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya.

Sakuraba slapping Bad News before the match may have been the best part. Of course, Bad News wants to take it to the ground as soon as he can because Sakuraba’s kicks are going to hurt. Your typical Bad News leg trip takedowns following by laying. Sakuraba's double leg takedown>armbar attempt is probably the most exciting this gets before Allen grabs the double wristlock for the submission. Mehhhh.

A very strong championship squash by Takada, thanks in big part to Billy Scott, who made Takada look like a million bucks. That's not to say Takada doesn't work him hard because he absolutely does but Scolls selling of the kicks and submissions were great. Of course, Takada isn't going to give Scott much and Scott's comebacks aren't very big. I mean, Takada doesn't look too distressed about the single leg crab but his reaction to Scott's big belly-to-belly is incredible. But Takada looked good - his submissions better than usual, his knees quick and dirty, and he murders Scott's legs with kicks. The final backdrop suplex>armbar finish looked brutal. Dominant showing by Takada in a very entertaining match.

Loved everything about the initial encounter between Albright/Hashimikov - the clash of titans tease, the intense tie up in the ropes, the first belly to belly suplex thrown. In fact, Hashimikov was the easy standout. Him pulling Severn around the ring by the ankle was good stuff. Tons of suplex attempt struggling throughout this. Poor Berkovich gets the shit end of the stick in this match. Him being scared of Albright was good stuff and then Severn manhandles him and busts his nose open.Severn was okay here. Bad kicks. Hashimikov comes in to take care of business, tapping Severn,. Not a great match but a great build to Albright/Hashimikov.

Yet another shitty Allen match, which means a lot of laying on the ground. Oh, he does grab a single leg crab and Yamazaki does too. And it's enough to submit Allen so there you go. Boo.

Bobchick has goofy hair, a goofy stance, but he's not bad. He's got good enough takedowns and he's not as clueless on the mat as the other white dudes. But he can't take suplexes and Lydick is a suplex machine. That's what he's good at -- although he does catch Bobchick in the face with some knees. Lydick hits a German and Bobchick sandbags him and lands right on Lydick's face. The second German, Bobchick lands very awkwardly but Lydick rolls through anyhow with the armbar for the submission. Okay match.

Great scramble to kick things off, with Tamura coming out on top, of course. His transition into the rolling armbar attempt was very sweet. He's just so good at working around his opponent and finding the advantage. Now, Miyato's no slouch. He's able to work a double wristlock momentarily and delivers a nice uranage slam and rolling solebutt. They play up the underdog overcoming the hot commodity, as Miyato keeps going after Tamura's gut with knees and kicks, and by the end of it, Tamura's struggling to maintain balance. But then Tamura finally slams him down and taps him with the head-and-shoulder lock. Fun match!

Typical undercard match with Cairo slapping a lot and throwing Kanehara around with a couple of suplexes. Kanehara blocking the enziguri was cool, and then he lets loose on the knee strikes in the corner, wins by KO. This was okay.

Kaki is slappy, his leg kicks and palm strikes are on point, he sinks the choke in. Koslowski's just looking for a suplex answer and he's able to deliver a pretty sweet one off of a kneebar attempt. Kaki's aggressive and stays on him, catching him in the face with a rolling koppou. Dennis gets kicked in the nuts and is very nervous about getting kicked there again, can't blame him. The finish with the leg kick catch into the crab hold by Dennis for the immediate tap out was funny. This was solid.

Of course, this is a blast. Anjoh being a smug shithead and throwing spitfire strikes while trying to avoid Nakano's German suplex is an easy but fun narrative, The stuff on the ground isn't very compelling but that's okay because they make up for it on their feet. Lots of feisty hands from Anjoh and it wouldn't be a Nakano classic without a busted nose. He dumps Anjoh with a dragon suplex but by the end of this, Nakano looks busted. The mustard on those strikes gets spicier and Nakano keeps trying for that German but can't and instead, gets choked out. Anjoh doesn't immediately let go of it either, in true Anjoh dick move fashion.

Burton's haircut is very sick. He throws Takayama around with waterwheel drops and double arm suplexes. He uses a side buster to counter an armbar takedown. The stuff on the ground is a mess but whatever, you can't expect much else from Burton. Takayama wasn't great here either.. He totally whiffs on a flying knee but finally taps Tom with a rear armbar. Meh.

Yeah, this was a blast, with Abe being the real standout as previously mentioned. Him punching Okabayashi from the apron and pissing him off was great. Abe strutting around vs. Yuji, stumbling over to Hashimoto's corner and slapping everyone. When Hash is working the shithead role, it works well - his strikes looked good. Sato was there for some sleazy punishment, Kamitani was trying to pump everyone up, Nomura was blasting everyone with kicks. At one point, Kamitani is eating kick after kick from Sato, and then tries to backdrop him, only to get punched int he head. The Abe/Nomura double teams looked nasty, and then Sato's finishing combo with the nasty headbutt>elbow>piledriver. I love these six-mans - so much fun.

This absolutely lived up to the hype and personal expectations, as the build to this moment had been phenomenal and really set the stage for this singles encounter. This was a true "coming of age" performance from Nomura, where he didn't look like the cutesy little ass-kicker but a legit bulked up threat to Okabayashi's title reign. His transitions and groundwork have improved a lot and his kicks only continue to get more precise and sharper. The story was obvious going into this match, with Nomura targeting the bandaged left arm, and everything surrounding that storied ruled. I feel like Okabayashi is still so underrated when it comes to being one of the absolute best at what he does and his selling in this match was so so good, and it played into his offense. The spear being almost ineffective, the way Nomura is able to crucifix Yuji's Argentine backbreaker and turn it into the manjigatame, and the apron spot, with Yuji countering the armbreakers with a sleeper and Nomura biting the arm to break it off. Of course, the blows they trade throughout are gnarly - Yuji turns Nomura's chest into pepperoni pizza with chops very early on and the way he clocks Nomura's head around with some of those open-hand slaps were scary. The simple offense felt huge -- Yuji's superduperplex or the nearfall off Nomura's German suplex hold, for example. The violence escalates into a nasty final showdown and this is where Nomura "the man" really shined. Loved his slaps turning into desperate punches and that last fireman's carry>armbar counter to Okabayashi's lariat. OKabayshi wins in dominant fashion, as he should, but he really struggled to get there and only used that injured arm when he had to, which played into the finish with him stripping the bandage. No overkill, perfect build and match length. An easy MOTYC and my current #1. Prior to his injury, Okabayashi was pulling out these awesome top list performances yearly (vs. Hideki Suzuki in 2017; vs. Hideyoshi Kamitani in 2016) and I'm so happy to see him back in top form for 2019.

This was fun. Suzuki transitioning into Fujiwara is an obvious route but a perfect one at his age -- the rear armbar and STF takedown and set-ups were slick. TAKA, of course, signing his own death certificate with the smack to the back of Suzuki's head and then Suzuki destroying with elbows after mocking TAKA's failed elbow attempts. We get some fun scrambles toward the end before Suzuki stretches the leg and taps him with a neat leglock.

Hart>Flair Kawada>Okada Misawa>Kobashi Danielson>Tsuruta Taue>Tanahashi

Random time limit draws are hard to pull off but somewhere in here is a great 15:00 or 20:00 match. I like Shiozaki a lot but I don't know if he was the right guy to have a 30:00 draw with Hideki Suzuki. That being said, Hideki worked this match very differently than previous draws against guys like Daisuke Sekimoto. One of the biggest criticisms I've seen of Hideki is his lack of selling but here, especially in the final minutes with him taking all those elbow shots to the dead, his selling was phenomenal. The match was a series of cool moments but the bigger match was slow and clunky, with a lot of start-stop momentum. While I love Hideki picking apart a limb, it dragged things out. The apron spot looked bad, the outside brawling was whatever, and the actual draw was very flat. BUT, like I said, there were a lot of cool moments. Suzuki holding onto the cravate on the sloop slam, him going nuts on Shiozaki's arm at one point, the chops in the corner and Shiozaki chopping him in the fucking face. And the final few minutes leading up to the draw were very good. The way Hideki would cheapshot a previously targeted limb to catch a breath. His sick backdrop hold. The way he sells Go's elbows and tries to retaliate with this limp, collapsing elbow was so good. I loved the dragon suplex counter to the rolling elbow. That nearfall would have been the perfect way to end the match on a draw. But then we get another slow down with the sleeper and a botched armbar spot and then it just ends. A shorter rematch would be ideal.

I liked it more than my review sounds. There were a lot of neat little nuances throughout with Tamura's coolness backfiring, Ito's big underdog performance, and I loved the final few minutes of the match with Tamura on the rocks.

This had a decent story to it, with Kanehara going after Takayama's leg and Takayama really trying to submit him with the crab holds. Lots of kicks early on -- a few knees and slaps but mostly kicks. Takayama definitely has the size advantage here, so it's funny watching Kanehara try to climb aboard with a submission attempt. Good selling from both guys here - at one point, Takayama tries for a German but his leg gives out. Eventually, he's able to hit the German and he keeps trying the crab hold, with Kanehara really selling the lower back. He's not able to take him down and Takayama finally taps him with the crab. Sloppy but again, pretty fun.

This may be the best match on the show, which isn't saying a whole lot, but boy, they get real handsy to open. I love the chaotic exchanges, with Cairo not holding much back. Lydick completely no sells Cairo's double arm suplex. The groundwork is whatever and by the end of it, Cairo is spent. But the energy, while it lasts, is fun. Lydick goes for an armbar, spiking Cairo on the takedown, and when that doesn't work, he DESTROYS him with a German suplex. And when THAT doesn't work, he hits another German suplex into the armbar for the win.

Two bland white dudes going at it - I mean, to his credit, Burton throws a nice double arm suplex. And Bobchick manages a few decent takedowns and transitions. But there's not much substance here. Burton has shitty kicks but catches Bobchick with a dirty knee strike. In the end, Bobchick hits the German into a an ugly choke hold for the submission. Bleh.

Silver's the bigger guy here and he throws Sakuraba with a few suplexes early on but Sakuraba's still slicker and quicker. He's able to suplex Silver down and tries to climb on with a sleeper but they're in the ropes. He doesn't come off as very confident or at least, he's really holding back against Silver. At one point, Silver catches him with an inadvertent kick to the face and his follow-up takedown into the choke looked pretty brutal. He hits a big ROCK BOTTOM to set-up the rear naked choke, submitting Saku in a very sloppy but sorta fun match-up.

Hey, I decided to watch another U-Style show and I thought this one was a lot of fun from top to bottom. U-STYLE (8/18/04) Manabu Hara vs. Rocky Romero Hara controlled much of this match and Rocky doesn't really do a whole lot apart from trying to grab the manjigatame a few times. But it was still pretty fun. Hara did some cool stuff like the shoot snap suplex into the head-and-shoulder lock and his transition into the single leg crab was very slick. The midmatch spat of violent kicks and slaps was good stuff, and Hara earns himself a yellow card for kicking Romero while he's down. Rocky trying to goad Hara to the mat and Hara trying to get the crowd to boo him was also a nice touch. The back-and-forth struggle for leg control was solid, with Rocky coming out of it with a grounded full nelson. Then it shifts into pro-rasslin territory with Romero's enziguri into the flying armbar. Rocky survives two German suplexes and they go back to the strikes to finish it out as the time expires at 15:00. Katsuhiko Nakajima vs. Ryuki Ueyama Baby-faced Nakajima comes out with some big flourishes but doesn't connect and instead, Ueyama just taunts him with a bunch of little slaps and body punches. A kneebar and rear choke nearly do the trick but Nakajima escapes and finally connects with a big head kick to Ueyama, followed by a flying kick in the ropes. But Ueyama's back it with the slaps and Nakajima can't quite keep the momentum going. Nakajima fights for and delivers a German suplex but Ueyama's immediately back on his feet and high kicks Nakajima a bunch of times in the head for the KO. Nakajima tried. Yuki Ishikawa vs. Crafter M Oh hey, it's my favorite dirty barefoot, trashbag pants, Rey Mysterio-knock off mask wearin' shooter gimmick, Crafter M...against one of my other favorite wrestlers in Yuki Ishikawa. The juxtaposition of Crafter floating all over Yuki grabbing holds and Yuki getting more and more frustrated with it and finally trying to snap Crafter in half was an excellent story. Truth be told, Crafter is very good and he just slips out of Ishikawa's fingers and quickly snags a number of holds -- his roll-up choke was very swanky. He's just making Ishikawa work extra hard to find leverage. Of course, Ishikawa's grittier approach was a nice counterbalance and him working the STF was great. Ishikawa slapping Crafter M into a heel hook was a cool spot. Ishikawa finally dumps him with a German suplex and grabs the Fujiwara armbar, and when that doesn't work, he tries to bed M in two and M taps. Great match-up. Alexander Otsuka vs. Masahito Kakihara This match is the semi-final match in a short tournament to crown the new U-Style champ... and unfortunately, Kaki injured himself kicking Otsuka in the elbow so the match is called off. Otsuka advances by forfeit. Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Hiroyuki Ito This is the other semi-final pairing and Ito doesn't hold back against Tamura. He absolutely rocks him with big nasty kicks and knee strikes. Not only that but Ito also sends him to the ropes a few times as he goes after the arm. Tamura's strategy seems to be catch a kick>grab the submission and it works a couple of times but Ito continues to knock him down with big strikes and Tamura's ultimately down to his final point. He tries but can't qyite finish off Ito with strikes and by the end, they're both staggering and Tamura even gets caught in the ropes with a missed kick attempt. He's finally able to catch a kick and tap Ito with the single leg crab to advance. Solid match. Kensuke Sasaki vs. Kyosuke Sasaki Look, Kensuke can't find a hold to save his life but it doesn't matter - this match was a blast, as Kensuke relies on his power and throws and clubbing forearms, with little to no finesse, while Sasaki's trying to be crafty and pull off the submission victory. At one point, he even tries for a shoot scorpion deathlock, which rules, but Sasaki is overpowering. Kensuke plants him with a shooter fisherman buster, blasts him with forearms, chops him, and when Kyosuke whiffs on a flying armbar, Kensuke powerbombs him. In the end, he destroys him with the lariat and taps him with his strangle hold. Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Alexander Otsuka A very good match in which an injured Otsuka is really trying to suplex Tamura but Tamura won't let him, which forces Otsuka to work extra hard on the mat. Immediately Tamura goes after that right elbow with kicks for a knockdown but on the mat, Otsuka more than holds his own in their exchanges, even with the bad elbow. His counter into the STF was very cool, and I loved watching them fight for control. Tamura realizes that kicking the elbow is a good thing so he goes back to it, with Otsuka trying to protect himself, finally tossing Tamura with a waterwheel drop. But Tamura keeps attacking with kicks and in desperation, Otsuka dropkicks him off...but Tamura's like a shark and kicks him once again in the elbow and then the face for the KO. New champ. Good stuff.

House show-level effort but still not a bad match at all between these two rivals. It takes awhile to get going but we get the usual spots - the German suplex by Yamazaki countered into the double wristlock, and then Yamazaki taking a page out of Takada's book and grabbing the arm off a backdrop. Takada attempts a terrible flying armbar and fails. On a personal level, I love Yamazaki's fish flop when Takada grabs the jujigatame. In the end, Takada heel kicks Yamazaki in the face, grabs a heel hold and doesn't let him go until Yamazaki taps.

Up there with Sano/Kakihara for MOTN - I mean, how can you go wrong with a suplex-heavy sprint? Within the first five seconds, Gary hits a belly-to-belly. Of course, he hits the German and the dragon to ultimately win via KO but Dennis gets in there with a very nice judo throw and gutwrench suplex. Not much in terms of groundwork - Dennis manages a head-and-arm lock off the judo throw and Gary applies the grounded full nelson off the German. But come on, you're not here to watch Gary Albright work submissions. Fun sprint!