[2016-04-09-BJW] Shuji Ishikawa vs Hideki Suzuki

[GOTNW]

This match was totally badass. Hideki Suzuki is a Billy Robinson trainee and someone I always love to see make tape and Ishikawa is one half of my favourite modern tag team and has also grown into a really strong singles worker in the last few years. I liked the matwork here a lot, you have Suzuki using his skill by applying cravates, leglocks, wrenching on Ishikawa's fingers, doing neat takedowns and transitions, Ishikawa can't really compete with him in that so he'll put him in an Iron Claw and grab him and just throw him off himself to combat Suzuki's superior ability. Some really great stuff happens outside of the ring as Ishikawa replies to Suzuki lowering the middle rope and asking him to come back to the ring by sitting in a chair and challenging Suzuki back, they proceed to just insanely stiff each other with elbows and it looks much more like the finish of that one Black Terry/Hechicero match than modern puro elbow exchanges. Ishikawa drops Suzuki on the apron in a absolutely disturbing and disgusting manner, I think Roderick Strong did something like that to like Mike Bailey last year in PWG, imagine that spot but even more violent looking. They get back into the ring and continue to produce greatness, Suzuki throws some beautiful suplexes and Ishikawa is just uberviolent, they do a great job of teasing comebacks only to cut them off in satisfying and unexpected ways and while they sometimes do the puro pop-up after being hit with a move they always sell the imact of the move once the sequence finishes and they never temporarily "no-sell" anything huge. Finish is something I've seen botched so many times I thought they were just going to screw it up differently here or it wasn't going to be the finish but IT WAS! And it was done right! And it looked really great and totally caught me off guard. ***3/4

[superkix]

Yeah, this was like a well-played chess match. I thought the seated chair strikes played into the match perfectly, as Ishikawa realized he had to go to his strengths instead of trying to outwrestle Suzuki. Suzuki is definitely one of my favorites in Japan right now. I loved his sleeper hold counter to the Rainmaker headbutt and then when Ishikawa gets a little too close to the ropes, he turns it into a dragon suplex. I still think the Fire Thunder Driver counter looks silly but the flash finish was fun. One of the better matches of the tournament.

[KB8]

This was really good. The opening stretch is another strong Suzuki matwork segment, with everything being mean and nasty and fought for, then Ishikawa decides he can't hang like that and takes a powder. Suzuki opens the ropes as an invite for him to get back in, but instead Ishikawa sits on one of the ringside chairs and gestures for Suzuki to join him. So they sit in the crowd and take turns elbowing each other really hard in the ear, which is a wrinkle on that particular trope that I don't have any problem with. I've only seen a handful of Ishikawa matches, but in every one of those matches he would stiff the daylights out of someone and he did that again here. Suzuki hardly throws love taps in his own right, but while he has the advantage on the mat it's Ishikawa who has the advantage throwing strikes. Ishikawa will apparently also recklessly fling you into things as he drops Suzuki over the ring apron with a front suplex. Some of the strikes down the stretch were meaty as all get out, particularly Ishikawa's knees to the body. We also got another compact-yet-satisfying finishing run -- no overkill, no egregious fighting spirit no-selling, and a cool finish that I initially thought was a miscue/botch. I would very much be down for watching these two crack each other in the face some more.