Kazuchika Okada vs Zack Sabre Jr. - Sakura Genesis, April 1st:
Not as good as I first thought but still a great match and title defence by Okada. The are a few criticisms of the match, Okada didn’t do much offence for most of the match which is a shame and when he did, it didn’t seem to phase Sabre at all. The crowd was silent for when ZSJ was on offence which was most of the match unfortunately. Other than the Okada chants every 5 minutes and the last 5 minutes of the match, the crow was silent and it did take away from the match. They knew ZSJ wasn’t winning and it showed. Which was another criticism of the match on the rewatch. Now onto the praises, there was some great storytelling with Okada, a trainee of the Toryumon Mexico Dojo trying to use his initial training to match Sabre move for move and submission and submission, getting overwhelmed and having to find other ways to beat Zack Sabre Jr in the match. Okada’s selling was great. He sold his arms really well and it showed in those final rainmakers in the end, just a shame it resulted in a odd looking rainmaker. Some of the reversals were really well done by Sabre and the submissions looked very snug and tingh for the majority of the match. Some neat call backs to the Shibata and Nakamura matches with Okada as well. Went far too long without much heat from the crowd and poor selling from Sabre. Great match nonetheless. ****¼
Comments
Post a Comment