[2013-11-03-Chakuriki Fighting Festival] Masashi Aoyagi & Akitoshi Saito vs First Tiger Mask & Tiger Shark

[Ma Stump Puller]

I was praying that this was going to be a ironed out shoot-style-ish match given the occasion and mix of talent, even just a couple of minutes of them pretending that was going to be the case at least. That hope is dashed in the first minute as after a fairly decent strike exchange, Saito and Shark start doing headlocks and Irish Whips sigh. I mean Shark's cool and all don't get me wrong, I'm just not interested in seeing what is essentially a slower Tiger Mask tribute act go at it. 

We do get some Aoyagi/First Tiger stuff and it's actually pretty good for two guys with a combined age of 110 or something. Aoyagi starts off with a fairly gentle low kick, Sayama responds with a hard high kick in response lol. He tries to do another but that gets answered with a spinning back kick that even god damn Masashi Aoyagi is like "that's way too much" and backs off. He gets bitched out with a Tiger Spin and sick Sambo throws into submissions. Shark gets in for a tame strike exchange which ends with Aoyagi doing a fairly on the money rolling wheel kick. Middle half is built around Shark being beat up by the two Karate bullies, mostly Saito doing his typical NOAH opener act; stalled suplex, apron DDT, piledriver on the outside, lariat on the ringpost, etc etc. Aoyagi does throw a nice kick here though. This bit drags a fair bit, especially when the two start doing IRS-tier headlocks near the end. Aoyagi bumps well for the inevitable First Tiger hot tag and even takes a sharp Tiger DDT. 

Last third is mostly him and Shark getting in their signature work and kicks, through we get a super awesome spot of Aoyagi just destroying Shark with some surprisingly damn good kicks to the body and head in response, including a solid leaping Enzuigiri shot. Saito comes in and we get another incredibly awesome spot as Saito throws Shark in the air off a back suplex for Aoyagi to "catch" (more like just hold his legs a bit, to be fair) him for a mid-air powerbomb!! Bonkers shit to add in here and it's also NOT the finish as that comes after a Saito lariat and Aoyagi throwing out a funky back sole kick to the head to finish things up. All in all I'm admittedly disappointed that this wasn't at least more grounded, though what he do get is fairly decent. Sayama's not really interested in the match sadly; a real shame given he still kicks hard as hell alongside the 2014 Saito match proving he could work a solid outing when pushed. Shark's better if only because he takes more bumps. I think the charm of this comes from Masashi Aoyagi having a blast as the old man indie karate dude just hurling himself around for spots he really shouldn't be doing yet proving otherwise. It's nowhere near his prime 90's stuff, still real charming. Saito does his job as the guy running the match in the background, standard antics for him.