[2016-12-11-DDT] DAMNATION (Daisuke Sasaki & Tetsuya Endo & Mad Paulie) vs Shuten Doji (KUDO & Yukio Sakaguchi & Masa Takanashi)

[aaeo_]

A match for the trios title. The match goes outside the ring early on. Sasaki starts attacking people with a crutch. Takanashi sold the subsequent beatdown really well. KUDO and Sakaguchi are the nominally better wrestlers in Shuten Doji but the best in this match is really Takanashi. It's amazing how often you get the sense that he just narrowly escaped a pinfall by outsmarting DAMNATION. Mad Paulie is good in this too, he no sells everything (he always does, it's cool) but he's a good stooge for Takanashi in this. The finish is great because it's so surprising but it still makes sense for the people involved, as Takanashi rolls up Sasaki and the crowd loses it. I guess it worked so well that they ran it twice more (with the last match having Ishikawa in Paulie's place at Korakuen) in two weeks, to similar success.