[2003-01-03-AJPW] Satoshi Kojima vs Johnny Smith

[TonyPulis'Cap]

This is for Kojima's MLW World Title that he had won towards the end of 2002, and is a cool title defence for Kojima back in his home promotion. Unfortunately this was clipped for MLW's Underground TV show, so its hard to get a complete sense of the match, but from what we do see, Kojima is really good on offence - explosive in his strikes and he has such great in ring charisma. Smith does show resilience to dig in after taking a lot of punishment in the sequences we see, and does get a couple of decent(ish) nearfalls of a lariat and a sit down powerbomb. While technically proficient, it does feel though that Smith doesn't have the weapons that Kojima does. 

In the closing stretch there is a great nearfall where Smith blocks the lariat and counters to a backslide that the crowd bites on, but almost straight after that he falls victim on a second attempt of the lariat. Hard to rate without seeing the full match, but from what we do see its a solid little encounter with the novelty of seeing Kojima defend a US promotions belt in AJPW.