[2019-01-03-AJPW-New Year Wars 2019] Kento Miyahara vs KAI

[Jmare007]

The first 20 minutes of this are worked very smartly. Every exchange was compelling and every transition for one of them to work on top made sense. Loved Kento's work on KAI's head and his selling of the leg was really good considering KAI didn't spent much time working it. The challenger was great throughout this match, sold well, showed great fire when he had to, the crowd was really behind him and every cut off he made was well timed. The last 8 minutes is like Miyahara flipped a switch and forgot to sell, I think his matches should never have leg work because his whole offense is based on his knee and speed and he clearly does not care about changing it up when it comes to final sequences thing was, it was a really dope 8 minutes. Korakuen lit, KAI doing awesome and Kento just knowing when to hit his stuff for maximum effect. Had he actually sold near the end this could've been amazing, but just like Omega/Tana, the positives far outweigh the negatives and the match was still awesome and worthy of an early MOTYC nod.

[Boss Rock]

I agree that the inconsistent leg selling really hurt this one as it had all the makings to be an arguable MOTYC. KAI looked phenomenal in not only working over Kento's leg, but hitting giant bomb after giant bomb to really make it seem like he was going to pull off the upset. Kento working over the head and neck as well as his comebacks were all good, but the abundance of Blackout knees he threw in the finishing stretch were devoid of any selling. Considering this is the formula that Kento and KAI have worked in pretty much all of their matches, I had hoped they would have tried something different or Kento would have put more thought into his selling. But it just wasn't there. That's not to say this still wasn't a great match (the finish in particular of KAI trying to kick the leg to escape the suplex was brilliant). KAI put in a career performance and Kento still knows how to make matches exciting. It just had the potential to be more than that. 

****1/4.

[Makai Club #1]

Very good match. Kento was pretty good and Kai was awesome Kai can usually be a total bore in singles but he was very compelling to watch here, really stepped up his game, bump his arse off and showed some fire throughout the match. Surprisingly Kento was the weaker of the two with spotty selling of the leg and generally keeping it basic which in turn allowed Kai to shine. Felt a bit long too if I'm honest, and the match didn't reach the level of the point of where I could consider this to be great. ***1/2

[nivvad]

The first really great match of the year once again goes to All Japan. Kento's first defense is against none other than the, in my opinion, underrated KAI of all people. My first and only real complaint is having to go 30 minutes once again. It was a trend that started last year, and looks to be continuing into this year. This means there was a good portion of Kento's control segment that was a whole lot of nothing compared to KAI's brilliant work on the former's leg, who's selling was also pretty shoddy. The last 10 minutes are pretty fantastic though and what you would expect in a Triple Crown title match with lots of bombs and fast paced sequences. Great match that'll be hard to top especially for this specific week in Japan, ****1/2.

[ShittyLittleBoots]

Let's get to the very brief positives first: the match had a good energy to it, and the start of it was fine. Like the first 2 minutes or so. Then happens the major moment of the match w/ Kento hitting his knee hard in the ringpost. KAI goes to work on it for a few moves, they brawl in the crowd & Kento regains the control; Kento on top for a while, and then when they've been in the ring for a while, KAI does a dropkick in the knee that Kento hurt. How does Kento react? Well, immediately, and I mean IMMEDIATELY he catches KAI in a perfect Triangle Choke. Legs locked all the way through & all. Kento's selling is comically bad - he makes Okada's worst selling performances look like the best ones of Kawada's, and Omega's spotty knee selling performance at the Dome the day after is some Terry Funk level selling after watching this shit. He no sells everything KAI does, and wins with his suplex, doing the BRIDGE on the pin perfectly without any problems. That was a real big turd on top of an already real big shitcake. After reading all the reviews for the match, I was ready to excuse the no-selling after the stuff outside the ring, because I understood the knee wasn't THAT much of a major target of KAI's attack, but then KAI kept & kept on working that knee, and Kento kept on no-selling; running, doing his knees & other shit. Awful stuff.