[2005-12-04-NOAH-Winter Navigation] Go Shiozaki & Mitsuharu Misawa vs Katsuyori Shibata & KENTA

[ShittyLittleBoots]

The TAKEOVER duo has an awesome entrance together. As Misawa makes his entrance, Shibata just stares him down & I am already loving this. Then the actual match starts with Shibata completely owning Go. He doesn't want to fight Go, he wants Misawa! So Misawa tags in, and we get some great stiff back & forth between him & Shibata. Eventually Shibata comes out on top, so Misawa works as the FIP for a bit - KENTA & Shibata were awesome working over him in complete dickish, no respect fashion. They weren't out there to shake hands with the legend or anything, they were out there to make a hard hitting, badass statement. Misawa comes back to things & KENTA works as the FIP for a brief amount of time - eventually the Takeover fellas gain the advantage again & they just kick the shit out of poor Go. Shibata & KENTA truly were amazing together in this one. Then the finishing run, my goodness. That was really hot & had a real sense of urgency to it - great way to cap off this classic tag match. Takeover rules. ****1/2

[superkix]

I guess this is where the “heat” between Shibata and Shiozaki took root. Shibata kicks the crap out of Shiozaki to open this match and calls out Misawa like a badass. Hell of a way to start the match. This was pandering at times but felt more consistent from bell-to-bell than their previous tag. Misawa took some major bumps (Jesus, that springboard Doomsday Device) and the interactions between he and Shibata felt unique but it’s a lot of Shiozaki getting dominated. Shiozaki doesn’t look bad in there and he’s always been a good seller. Love Misawa snapping on KENTA when he comes at him with those disrespectful shit kicks in the corner. The story here is Shibata REALLY wants to put Misawa to sleep and defeat him. He dangerously backdrops Misawa on his head after a sleeper hold and slaps it right back on, tiring him out for the PK. Shiozaki breaks it up and immediately pays for it. That KENTA save from across the ring after the moonsault was awesome. In the end, Shiozaki survives the PK but not a few brutal kicks to the head. Another good to great tag match with plenty of fun moments.