[2000-08-09-NJPW-G1 Climax] Kendo Kashin & Shinjiro Otani vs Shinya Makabe & Koji Kanemoto

[soup23]

Another strong outing for the Otani/Kanemoto tag folder for 2000. This has Makabe involved which has been rare in tag matches and him and Kashin did pretty well together in their sequences. I don’t know how Makabe can have so much better strikes here so early in his career than now in current day. I guess we he bulked up and became a powerhouse heavyweight, that meant less proficiency. The Kanemoto vs Otani sequences like usual are heated and this should have gotten the crowd hot for the start of the show. ***1/4 (6.7)

[AstroBoy]

A fun juniors tag built largely around interactions between Kanemoto and Otani. Those two look predictably sharp outside of a weird clunky dueling spin kick sequence that fell flat. Otani in particular was arrogant and dismissive and had some fun exchanges where Makabe kept up his end pretty well. He showed some pretty nice fire and took the fight back to Otani. Still, Otani gets the win here in a fun match.

 

**3/4