[2000-04-07-NJPW-Dome Impact] Shinjiro Otani vs Satoshi Kojima

[soup23]

Kojima really pissed me off in this match because Otani was fantastic. He attacks the arm and then runs through all of his great closer offense with a combination of intensity and prickish that only he can pull off. Kojima tries with giving Otani a face wash and it fails miserable. Kojima on top throughout this match was completely uninteresting. Add to that his refusal to use anything but the arm that has been worked over and you really only get a very good match that should have been great and had the wrong guy going over. ***1/2

[Loss]

I appreciate that Kojima let Otani take most of this since he'd be going over in the end anyway, but yeah, he was completely unmotivated while Otani was giving an inspired performance. How do these heavy vs junior matches still manage to get heat when the junior never wins? ***1/2

[AstroBoy]

This felt like a borderline comedy match in that Ohtani's attempts to take down Kojima were met with relative indifference and a bored Kojima performance.

 

Ohtani puts together a crafty opening around working the arm and Kojima can't be bothered to really sell or alter any of his offense. Even when Ohtani gets disrespectful and really lays it in, it's treated like a near jobber guy trying to step up to the big man and Kojima essentially shrugs off any threat.

 

Ohtani works in a really different and awesome take on the 1-count before his stretch run and goes through a series of big moves but falls short in a pretty good match.

 

***

[Moonsault Marvin]

Otani put in a good performance, but Kojima was lackluster at best. Otani kept working the arm including the dropkick from the ropes to the arm, but Kojima didn't sell it in any way. After being beat up for most of the match, Kojima wins easy without constructing a comeback.

 

Average match.

[superkix]

I really liked the opening with the hard open hands exchanged and Ohtani going after the elbow/lariat arm and getting in some of his signature spots. But when Kojima takes over on offense, he more or less blows off the armwork and just shows off his dominance. I liked the Koji Cutter spot off the missed spinning heel kick and Ohtani's reaction to the nearfall off the dragon suplex hold was great. Other than that, Kojima kind of stunk it up.