[2000-10-22-NJPW] Jushin Liger & Kendo Kashin & Dr Wagner Jr vs Koji Kanemoto & Minoru Tanaka & Tatsuhito Takaiwa

[soup23]

Another chapter in a hate filled year between the juniors. At first, I was a little surprised to see Wagner teaming with LIger and Kashin but he fit in well and I liked them doing some less than honorable tactics like the eye rake and double teaming. Overall the match carried a good pace and featured all six shining at different moments. MInoru Tanaka is really growing on me and was pretty exceptional in his snot nosed punk role here. I am starting to see the strong Kashin booking be overbearing as here it felt like the least consequential person in the entire match somehow got the submissions. ***1/2 (7)

[ohtani's jacket]

The juniors continue to bring the ruckus. This was a fun house show level match. The three Wagner fans in their masks made for a lively atmosphere early on and the bout kept ticking along with plenty of good action. The selling wasn't the greatest and guys accumulated a bit too much damage to keep realistically kicking out but if you just want to watch some fun juniors action then this was a breeze. Tanaka was always a junior at heart so has fit seamlessly into the division and Wagner in New Japan is always fun. I think he broke his own record for how many times you can audibly say the word 'motherfucker' on a live TV taping. Liger continued his run of indifferent performances in 2000 but he didn't need to be outstanding for this to be a decent hitout for the juniors division.