[2016-08-20-K-DOJO] Kengo Mashimo vs Kaji Tomato

[superkix]

Kengo’s relentless and focused legwork drives this match and even though I’m not the biggest fan of Kaji Tomato, he served his purpose here and sold well for Kengo’s onslaught. At times, the match felt a bit too choreographed but that may just be Tomato’s offensive style, which is hard for me to get excited for. But Kengo’s presence was really great and he’s good at bringing the focus of the match back to the leg, even when Kaji seemingly forgets about it during his silly offense runs. I like how he watches while Tomato hurts himself on the springboard dropkick attempt and like a shark smelling blood, he goes right back to attacking the leg. Kengo’s had a quietly good year and this is yet another strong performance.

[soup23]

This has a good bit of hype surrounding it on the indy sleaze front. I liked the structure of it and especially Kengo's leg work but was really bothered by Tomato's selling in the final portion and thought he relied way to heavily on the significantly damaged leg that prevented this match from being a great one. I really compared this to the Okada vs. Marufuji G-1 match where I felt the same way about the limb selling preventing a match from reaching its potential. ***1/2