[2001-01-20-CZW-Delaware Invasion] Justice Pain vs Yoshihiro Tajiri

[GSR]

One of the officials does his best to try and keep Justice Pain’s entourage from accompanying him to ringside, but Wifebeater manages to sneak his way past. Spin kick by Tajiri that only just fails to connect as both men are sizing the other up. Pain blocks the hip toss so Tajiri kicks him in the head instead. ‘Stand off respect spot’ and I wonder how many times I’ll be writing that this year? Justice shoves Tajiri to the mat but he’s right back to his feet with the nip up and then flips him the double bird. Samoan drop by Pain. He whips Tajiri into the corner only to go charging head first into a thrust kick. Tajiri misses with the enziguiri and Justice slaps on an STF, forcing him to crawl to the ropes for the break. Spinning toe hold that Tajiri escapes from with a kick to the head before applying an STF of his own. A pretty funny moment as he slaps Pain on the top of his head while he’s trapped. Justice backdrops Tajiri over the top rope and although he lands on the apron, is felled by a forearm smash. Here comes Wifebeater with the predictable interference, holding a chair over his face so that Pain can land a slingshot leg drop from in the ring. A lovely Asai moonsault with Wifebeater keeping Tajiri in position. This is fast becoming a handicap match with the official making no attempt whatsoever to do anything about the interference. Tajiri reverses a whip on the floor and Justice wipes out a row or so of chairs. He launches one of the chairs at the head of Wifebeater before placing another over Pain’s face and stomping it. They return to the ring where the two trade open hand slaps to the chest. Handspring elbow by Tajiri. Stunner, knee to the head and a roll up for two. A pair of kicks box Pain’s ears and a basement dropkick for another near fall. ‘Brain buster’ and before the ref has even started to count the cover, Wifebeater is in pulling Tajiri off his man. There are already calls of “bullshit” as the crowd know exactly how this is going to end up. This is ridiculous as Wifebeater with a chokebomb on Tajiri right in front of the referee. Pain with the lionsault and he retains the CZW title. The “bullshit” chants are even louder now. Zandig makes an appearance and passes Tajiri a table which he puts Justice through with a double foot stomp off the top as they try to send the fans home happy.

 

In the Super Crazy match we got a disqualification for outside interference, so how on earth was Wifebeater allowed to continually interfere all match, including entering the ring to be directly involved in the finish? That lack of consistency is a real bug bear for me. Tajiri had some nice moments but I didn’t think much of Pain at all. I also found this dull at times with my attention starting to wane. After watching the Crazy match I thought this probably wouldn’t end cleanly, something that was reaffirmed as Wifebeater accompanied Pain to ringside.

[soup23]

Lethal marks hard for Tajiri. He gets a great reaction as well. I thought he looked fantastic within this match. He didn’t seem to be mailing it in and had a crispness and precision on his strikes. Pain was in a big spot here and he did ok. I liked his tope to the outside and I don’t think the moment swallowed him but he did certainly look outclassed compared to Tajiri. I would have rated this as very good if not for the horrible finish. Wifebeater interfering on Pain’s behalf throughout the match is annoying enough, but chop on a terrible finish used to protect Tajiri but it ended up making both competitors look worse. This was an interesting CZW show overall. The crowd was hot and I don’t recall seeing this building again although they do run Smyrna again in the future. ***1/4 (6.3)