[2009-09-06-Dragon Gate USA] Bryan Danielson vs Naruki Doi

[Charles (Loss)]

Talk about it here.

[ShittyLittleBoots]

Nobody brutalizes a limb more compellingly than Danielson & that truly shows here as he destroys Doi's arm in the most vicious & enjoyable fashion. That of course came as an answer to Doi's brief attack on Danielson's knee - Doi doesn't work over it a ton, but he does some stuff over it in the beginning, and it shows till the end as Danielson does some awesome subtle selling with it. Good examples of that would be him falling down, holding the knee after delivering a big move to Doi, and then a while later after he had delivered a yet another big move, he couldn't capitalize & cover because the knee was hurting, as he had to rest for a few seconds on the corner. He doesn't exactly sell it dramatically, and those two moments sound more dramatic when I write them than they actually were. I'd say it's really good selling, because like I mentioned, Doi's attack on the knee was pretty short lived, and he never really came back to it as the match went on. I also really loved the slugging-it-out portions of the thing, which were mostly all about Doi's quick slaps vs. Danielson's lethal kicks. Really good & hard hitting stuff w/ both guys bringing their own flair to the bits, making them standout from your usual generic indy/puro strike standoffs. Danielson was fantastic all the way through, but Doi was really good as well. He didn't do much with the arm that Dragon destroyed, and he was pretty great on the offense himself. There's definitely lots to love here as I've highlighted, and I also gotta mention the finishing stretch, which was absolutely awesome. The two nearfalls Danielson gets before Doi puts him away with the Muscular Bomb rule big time. Great match. ****