[2023-09-03-NOAH-N1 Victory] Kaito Kiyomiya & Ryohei Oiwa vs Yoshinari Ogawa & Zack Sabre Jr

[Ma Stump Puller]

I love how Yoshinari Ogawa is now in the old-man lucha role of getting to fuck around in tags and trios for 90% of the year, but he gets to then commit to matches with guys he really likes; guys like Ridgeway, HAYATA, etc, and now this. In a way, he's become what Misawa was in the 2000's with his consistent focus on training and working with his own projects to get them over. It was really cool to see him paired back up with Zack; I thought they were one of the cooler tag duos of the time (I actually covered that recently, not finished sadly) and him getting to cook with game opponents made this a easy great watch. 

Pre-match has Ogawa be a prick and yank Kaito down during his introduction for no real reason, he's just built that way. Starting sequences with Zack/Kaito were pretty much flawlessly smooth, maybe a bit too smooth but I still quite enjoyed how they played around with some WoS bits here and there between the usual handsprings and takedowns. Ogawa/Oiwa was all built on basic wrestling fundamentals; Ogawa would bully with extended holds, Oiwa would have to rely on his atheticism to find ways to escape or counter. Simple stuff: seeing how Ogawa would add in little flairs here and there to really grind the moves out with consistent cheap shots, taunting, and some genius transitions reminds you why he's so brilliant at structuring a match, making a crowd ooo and ahh at shit like headlock takeovers.

I was surprised at how much he gave Kaito in terms of selling and bumping, even for stuff that I wasn't really that hot for like his dodgy elbows. The good news; that doesn't last for long! Kaito actually spends the whole middle half selling for the technical lads as they do their old tag-team routines and hone-in on torturing the guy with submissions and whatnot. Kaito's selling for this was fine, but him screaming for what was most of the duration was unneeded and kinda distracting: I'm fine with screaming during the worst moments, consistent screaming for every little thing? Yeah no thanks. I don't know why they went from the arm to the leg and then back again as well and it did feel like overkill, especially when Kaito's attempted hot tag almost right after was him running around the place over and over. There were some funny Rat Boy moments with Ogawa baiting out the ref to try to kick his arm away during a sunset-press before pulling back and making him fall so he could get away with punching Kaito in the face to escape lol. This leads to a strong sequence of the two using the apron to attack Kaito's head while he's draped over alongside Zack throwing on a really cool inverted headscissors to try to knock him out afterwards, leading Kaito to dramatically act like he's dead for a minute. The control work was generally pretty robust and kept a strong pace despite it being led by two technical guys. 

Looking at this and then the recent Bryan match, I felt like Zack's stuff while still smooth had a bit more.....struggle? I mean he's still mostly the same, more so his work seems more laboured here than it did there. Maybe that's the difference in crowd expectation: he can go at a more slower pace and not have to worry about losing interest: who knows. Last third was enjoyable enough with Oiwa's decent hot tag and some fairly good work with Sabre. He does like a big wrestling takedown after catching one of his kicks to go into a cross armbreaker and does a few gutwrench suplexes that looked very flush. Kaito's work was actually less impressive as he focuses on doing his strikes, which are pretty awful. Ogawa and Kaito finish up and as per expected from their prior work from the 2021 series, it's quite enjoyable, with Kaito pulling all of his wacky Muto-isms with Dragon Screws and crazy facial expressions in submissions. The roll-up sequences were legit entertaining given Ogawa's dragging himself along at such a old age yet still surprising the crowd with some of the stuff he was trying. Eventually Kaito just does the classic Muto-style Shining Wizard spam and after three (!!!) he manages to get the clean pin.

All things considered, I think this could've helped with some more rowdy brawling in places. Apart from Zack near the start going to the outside for about a minute, they never really get to those levels of chaos that could've been accomplished. As per a Ogawa-match the technical aspects are all really solid and well thought out in terms of a basic "heel team in control" routine as per what the duo usually done. Sabre and Ogawa work that dynamic naturally really well, even if Ogawa is starting to get effected a bit by Father Time; he's a bit off with some of the faster counters here, but given he's nearly 60 years old at this point you gotta kinda let that slide all things considered. I think what actually does tangibly drag the match down are the other wrestlers involved here. I mean listen, I really like Kaito Kiyomiya, guy is quite talented, he just never really seemed properly on in this match with a lot of his stuff lacking intensity and, you know, looking good. Oiwa while also somewhat having issues with that had some strong powerhouse moments of just throwing weight around, so at least he has that coolness factor to rely on. Kaito parroting Muto-spots with none of the unique flash doesn't match that at all. I'd say the match is still a really solid watch, it's just that there were obvious weak links that could've been worked on.