[2017-07-23-DDT] Konosuke Takeshita vs Keisuke Ishii

[superkix]

Ishii with some incredibly focused and aggressive neckwork, and excellent counterwork, seemingly having an answer to a lot of Takeshita's attempts. For an ace, Takeshita's bumping and selling is some of the best around and while I could nitpick the non-selling on the German suplex bridge, he still did a lot to show the effects of Ishii's neckwork. Like most Takeshita defenses, he displays his dominance early on but Ishii's able to come back and hit his neckbreaker on the guardrail to set up his go-to limb-based strategy. Takeshita's neck takes quite the beating, like a German suplex on the apron, a nasty Ishii Driller, and a tiger suplex hold. Ishii tries to murder him with a top rope tiger suplex but Takeshita is able to lariat him off in a nod to Hansen/Kobashi. Takeshita can't get anything off without a reversal from Ishii but when Ishii goes for the Final Cut, taught to him by Kaz Hayashi to finish off Takeshita, the champ's finally able to counter, taking the wind out of Ishii's sailes, before shutting him down to retain. Takeshita's final comeback felt a little rushed but overall, this was really good with Takeshita continuing to show his versatility.