[2005-06-10-NOAH Come Together] Go Shiozaki & Jun Akiyama vs Jun Izumida & Takeshi Rikio

[Ma Stump Puller]

Based Izumida is under fire here as he fights for the love of Mima Shimoda, who's in the crowd for the show. Trying to court a LCO member is definitely....a choice, but hey you can't knock the guy for trying. This is predictively a fairly low-workrate match as a result as it mostly revolves around Izu doing Izu things, like hitting people hard with his hands and head as per standard. Go gets some nasty chops and forearms done to him as punishment for his terrible budget-Kobashi impressions and the world is right once again. Rikio is pretty sturdy here with some impressive power spots alongside stealing the Nishimura Surfboard spot, which the crowd enjoy. Middle is mostly Izu taking the bumps as he gets beaten down by the Akiyama/Go combo. Shimoda gets into Izumida just fucking hurling his head into Go's for some disgusting Fugo-Fugo style headbutts and the dude gets some actual life out of rookie Go as they trade heavy shots. Akiyama seemed a little bit clunky here, surprisingly! He barely shows up for this outside of some small exchanges and those aren't fantastic, usually sticking to safe and conventional exchanges without much real effort thrown into them. Given this would be his last match until next month he might've been a bit bashed up, which would explain his slow pace.

Rookie Go lands a decent Fisherman's Suplex, completely botches his moonsault attempt, missing Izu altogether. His punishment is getting wrecked with a sick lariat from Rikio and co. Go kicks out of a splash so Izu hits a great Meteorite headbutt off the top rope for the finish. Post-match has Izumida push his luck with Shimoda and ends up getting wrecked off a tiny pink chair shot to the head! Poor guy. Anyway match was actually unreasonably good for a random NOAH undercard. Go was generic as anything but Rikio and co are a solid duo who do most of the heavy-lifting, which is fine by me given those two are great for this kind of pace. Izumida is always a highlight, especially with his explosive stiff offence, really kicking Go's ass and getting some of that early babyface fire out of him that NOAH would've really killed to have in a few years...maybe the solution is just having big lumps beat the shit out of him? That could've worked.