[2016-12-25-DDT] HARASHIMA vs Shigehiro Irie

[aaeo_]

There were some good moments here but a lot of things took me out of this match. I mean, this has literally four different forearm exchanges. I'd still say Irie's performance on this is very good. He really sells the frustration of being unable to put HARASHIMA away. At one point, he single-handedly saves a strike exchange on the apron (lol). The referee was counting them out as they traded forearms, and Irie steps through the ropes, shoves the ref and goes back outside to give Hara a piledriver. That was a cool little moment. There are some good near-falls. I also really like HARASHIMA as the nigh-unbeatable ace, but he can have bad big matches (against Tanahashi, Irie, one of the Ibushi matches) where everything feels stilted. I'd call this a succesful match for what it was trying to do but it's not one I enjoyed overall.