Search the Community

I love both of these guys and this delivered almost everything I wanted. From the get go Kento is annoyed by the young kid that the crowd has really grown into in the last year, at first he tries to establish his dominance and act cocky, more concerned about Wada not letting him do what he wants that really treating Nomura as a threat. But Naoya is no slouch and he's in it for a fight, he MAKES Miyahara give a damn by hitting him with elbows and getting up every single time Kento hit him hard. Loved the countout tease and Nomura's comeback afterwards, that spear to roll up pin combination was dope as fuck and had me fooled. Same with Naoya fighting with everything he got so Kento wouldn't hit the straight jacket German because he knew that was death for him. This had some down times but I was compelled throughout by Miyahara's antics, Wada being Wada and Nomura's resilience. The final 5-6 minutes were great - I know some will hate the german suplex "no sell" by Nomura but I was fine with, it was just 1 and he hit one move before going down - shit, whole match was awesome.

Daichi Hashimoto & Hideyoshi Kamitani (Okami) vs Naoya Nomura & Yuma Aoyagi - All Japan Real World Tag League Final day 12/12/17 Well I'll be damned this was awesome! A young guys matchup - Big Japan's team are 25 year old each while All Japan's is 22 each - for a shot at the tournament finals. It was weird but dope watching Okami having to work as the imposing, invader team and they pretty much worked Strong BJ formula match and it fucking works, with them mostly working over Yuma and trying to keep Nomura at bay. This was 14 minutes long but felt longer (in a good way) with a jam packed Korakuen Hall growing more and more invested in Aoyagi and his battle to get the home team the W. Even though he was mostly limited to hot tags and leveling the playing field, you can tell Nomura is gonna be special and that the Sumo Hall performance/showcase was not a fluke, crowd was solidly behind him and you could feel the young breh being a force that the BJW team didn't want much do with. A couple of cool nearfalls and spots that didn't rely on excess and over doing stuff. This was such a joy to watch, I was happy as fuck watching such young dudes delivering like this.

Welp, they did it again. This was the Nomura showcase in a Strong BJ formula match, and of course it works like a charm. Fun shine segment with Naoya and KAI getting the upperhand over the two beasts before the young kid gets pummeled by Daisuke, from then on we got the always awesome "small team tries to come back against Sekimoto & Okabayashi" comeback story, with Nomura being the stand out, showing great fire and good offense while a really good Sumo Hall crowd rallies behind him. This had dope spots and nearfalls and kept building drama until the end. Fucking awesome tag match, what a year for Strong BJ, best fucking tag team in the world.

A nice little match, as Nomura attacks Omori before the bell with consecutive Dropkicks and sets the pace for this quick match. Omori looks to hit the Axe Bomber, Nomura looks for the Spear, naturally they run the ropes a lot for that, and it's about as cohesive as it could be. I loved how Omori blocked Nomura's first Spear attempt by just powering through and that the finish included countering the back of the head-normal Axe Bomber, that and the length of the match were a nice nod to the famous Akiyama/Omori sprint, and Nomura's delayed selling was on point. **3/4

This was a fine rookie punishment match. Nomura was ok but his comebacks were quite predictable and not nearly as interesting as Sai dominating him and cutting him off with brutal kicks. It's probably for the best his offence is limited to running forearms right now but it doesn't make for exciting viewing when they're pulled into the generic "rookie bounces off the ropes a couple of times before taking the veteran down" spots. **3/4

I guess this is why people go to All Japan house shows these days, to hear Shadow Explosion live and see young lions pay their dues. I really liked the spot with Nomura grabbing a waistlock and Ishikawa trying to counter it with strikes only to push Nomura into the corner when he failed to counter it the aforementioned way, looked like something that could be milked out in a big match with a significant size difference. I was surprised how much he gave Nomura, a couple of suplexes and even let him take him down with repeated shoulder blocks, Ishikawa has good enough offence that he can afford to give a guy a little more without losing credibility as a monster, this was very fun and totally makes my list of 2016 *** matches you probably won't watch but would enjoy if you did.

In my free time I watch Jun Akiyama beat up young boys in front of 100 people. This is a really neat version of that match, Nomuta is an insane bumper, watching Akiyama throw him into the guardrail five times was a thing of beauty. Akiyama pushing Nomura onto the ropes while Nomura was elbowing him was badass, you could totally imagine him mumbling "come on kid lay it in", I liked Nomura's running elbows and his spear/jacknife pin, still this is all about Akiyama brutalizing him. Akiyama going repeteadly going for pins to tire out Nomura and changing them up a few times as well as knocking Nomura back down whenever he tried to use his hands to push himself up when Akiyama locked him in a Boston Crab were details I appreciate very much. ***-ish but insanely fun.