[2001-05-26-DDT] Tanomusaku Toba & Tsunehito Naito vs Tomohiro Ishii & Tomohiko Hashimoto

[King of Debt]

This one rules, Toba trying to school the young Hashimoto while Ishii and Naito pop their heads in the door to make things difficult. Right from the opening exchanges between Toba and Ishii they're just smacking the everliving life out of each other, Toba throwing wicked punches while Ishii unveils his stunning counter-strategy of just not feeling pain when you get hit really hard in the face by a guy wearing boxing gloves and then hitting him really hard instead. You really want to see more of him and Naito but they're both awesome in their supporting roles - a large part of the drama comes in Hashimoto's close grappling style requiring him having to eat Toba's harsh strikes to even stand a chance, and he does well in getting this struggle across, finding small opportunities in between Toba's blows and struggling more to fight them as the damage takes its toll. Everyone is on form here, everything is well-paced, and most importantly everyone is hitting HARD. One of the absolute stand-outs of DDT's early days.