[2017-07-09-GPW-War of the New Age] Donovan Dijak vs Naomichi Marufuji

[ShittyLittleBoots]

This was all about Dijak scouting everything Marufuji did & trying to avoid those deadly chops. Dijak showed great heart in everything he did & I thought Marufuji did a good job selling Dijak's work w/ his facial expressions going like "oh shit, this kid's actually great". Great story of the younger, hungry fella going against the veteran. ****

[bucky]

I was there live for this and thought it was very good. Marufuji gives up a ton of size to a guy like Dijak and the match was worked correctly for the difference in size. This told a good story of skilled veteran vs. younger opponent who did his homework, with the size difference adding an extra element. Marufuji was over as hell and we were all losing our minds for his chops. The match had a really nice controlled pace to it, and felt just the right length and speed for what ended up being the semi main event. It was my second favorite match of the night after the tag title match, which was just a wild sprint and probably deserves its own thread.