[2000-02-01-NJPW] Shinya Hashimoto & Takashi Iizuka vs Manabu Nakanishi & Yuji Nagata

[soup23]

A fun match to close out the night of NJPW action. Hashi and Ilzuka continue to be a good team together and the Nakanishi & Nagata tandem feels right on the brink of being main event players. I especially liked seeing Hash and Nagata mix it up as really that doesn’t seem like a played out pairing at all. I was wondering who was going to take the fall here and was a bit surprised Nakanishi ended up dropping it. I guess momentum had to be built for the pending match vs. Ogawa and Crew. ***

[Loss]

We get about 8 minutes of the 11:32 match. I thought this was solid. The action was strong and I would have liked it without this element, but what put it over the top for me was how Hashimoto was presented as a cut above and came across as larger than life. I guess you could say this was around the time he was peaking as a major star before it all went to hell. I like the dynamic of Iizuka as his workhorse that he takes with him everywhere he goes. I also liked the clean-as-a-whistle submission finish when Hashimoto trapped Nakanishi in the cross armbreaker. There was no shame at this point in tapping clean to Hashimoto, and both he and Nagata got in their shots in losing, so this was presented very well. ***

[Robert S]

Yeah, this was all about Hashimoto entering and kicking some serious 3rd generation ass. Of course Hashimoto kicking ass is always fine by me... And man did I forget the jungle-warrior-style hair (or however you want to call that) of Nakanishi in this time period. I suppose Choshu wanted him to be the "3rd generation Choshu" (with Sasaki being the 2nd generation edition).

[cramerjason87]

I liked how strong Hashimoto came off in this match. Nakanishi getting knocked out briefly and turning it into 2 on 1 was interesting. Fast paced basic NJPW heavyweight style match. What was shown was decent.

[AstroBoy]

It has to be said -- Nakanishi's spear on Iizuka here was absolutely incredible. I thought Nakanishi looked really promising here and it'll be interesting to see his career path as this goes on. Hashimoto brings incredible fire and expressiveness to these strike exchanges and it goes a long way. I too thought the finish was fine for all involved. This was good.

[Moonsault Marvin]

Good match. It was interesting that Nakanishi got taken out twice in this one, first with the sleeper while intervening and then submitting to Hashimoto's armbreaker. Hashimoto brings so much to these matches with his intensity.