nivvad Posted July 27, 2018 Report Share Posted July 27, 2018 An awesome encounter between two very athletic and handsome men. This was as fast and spotty as one would've hoped this match would be. While neither man did anything too crazy, they both still showed off their amazing athleticism, and showed a great chemistry between each other. SANADA working Ibushi's leg early on was kind of funny because everyone knew Ibushi was going to stop selling it a few moments later, and he did. Besides that though this was a great main event with SANADA picking up the hometown win, ****1/2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asteroidcitizen Posted July 27, 2018 Report Share Posted July 27, 2018 I did not like this match at all. A real compendium of all the flaws of the NJPW main event style in 2018 (with the exception of it coming in under thirty minutes, I guess). It was athletically impressive, but so much of it made no sense. Sanada works the knee, but Ibushi barely sells it, and then just carries on doing his crazy springboard moves (as Nivvad says, this comes as a surprise to absolutely noone, but it's actually worse when you're expecting it before it happens); Sanada on at least two separate occasions does a moonsault as a transition into the dragon sleeper, to the audible bafflement of the crowd; the grappling early on felt like killing time, with no urgency or sense of purpose (and coming right off the back of Sanada's great match with ZSJ it's harder to forgive). And then down the stretch we get all the usual hyper-speed reversals, nearfalls, strike exchanges, etc., and maybe it's the G1 burnout talking but I found it completely formulaic and impossible to care about any of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShittyLittleBoots Posted July 27, 2018 Report Share Posted July 27, 2018 A pretty damn great performance by SANADA, and a very enjoyable match overall. Some unfortunate no-selling of the leg work by Ibushi, but that wasn't the focal point of the match for very long, so it didn't take away too much from it. Good, competitive back & forth stuff. ***1/4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boss Rock Posted July 31, 2018 Report Share Posted July 31, 2018 SANADA continues to rise to the occasion and finally live up to the potential most saw in him when he returned to New Japan. The leg selling by Ibushi was iffy but typical. I just have to accept the guy just has ridiculously strong legs, ha. But other than my qualms with the leg selling, loved pretty much everything else about this. Just some excellent, athletic wrestling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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