ALL OUT (Shunma Katsumata & Yuki Ino), Antonio Honda, ASUKA & Danshoku Dino vs. DISASTER BOX (Kazuki Hirata & Toru Owashi), Makoto Oishi, Saki Akai & Super Sasadango Machine
With the World Cup currently going on in Japan, this is very rugby based. Meaning there is a rugby ball, a scrum and a haka. Good, fun opener. **1/2
Cody Hall & Yukio Naya vs. DAMNATION (Mad Paulie & Soma Takao)
This was an okay match. Worth skipping honestly. Naya and Cody Hall are still awkward in both their movements and offence. I like Takao but he couldn’t do much here. And Mad Paulie (bless him) isn’t a guy to make someone look good. **
Hiroshi Yamato & Shuichiro Katsumura vs. Mizuki Watase & Yukio Sakaguchi
Shuichiro Katsumura is a former MMA fighter with an 11-9-3 record, so he was an obvious match for Sakaguchi, DDT’s resident badass. There was an awesome moment were Katsumura sat down and offered his back for Sakaguchi to kick (think Shibata vs Goto) and caught his foot and turned it into an ankle lock. That was awesome. HiroshI Yamato and Watase had some good exchanges. All in all a pretty good match. ***
Four Way Hardcore Match: Akito vs. Daiki Shimomura vs. Daisuke Sasaki vs. FUMA
It’s always good to see the BASARA guys around. I don’t watch BASARA a lot, although I love it when I do, so it’s great to see these guys on a big stage to show off what they can do. The match started of like a tag guy with the BARASA wrestlers, FUMA and Daiki Shimomura, sticking together to take out the DDT wrestlers who are in rival units. Then the match got very plunder-ish once the BASARA guys turned on each other. Daiki got cut open pretty badly by a kendo stick shot by FUMA to the skull with a tin placed around the head. There was some nasty bumps taken by Sasaki throughout the match. One off the ladder, especially. The weapon use was very creative as well whether it was used for offence or Akito using the chair to get more leverage on a victory roll. FUMA looked really good and benefited from being the aggressor the whole match and made great use of his shine. A very well done Hardcore match. ***1/2
Jiro ‘Ikemen’ Kuroshio vs. Tetsuya Endo
Ikemen attacking Endo because he was taking the shine off his entrance was masterful. Great manipulation of the crowd as well to get them to turn on Ikemen immediately after cheering for him. I really loved Ikemen’s heel work in the match. Tons of aggression and malice in his attacks, especially against Endo’s left arm. Him turning his open the jacket pose into a total dickish taunt was excellence from him. Endo is a pretty good face, as shown here. He has a Marufuji aura around him where you can just get wow’d by his flying off. Funnily enough, they didn’t work together well at all when they faced at Peter Pan last year, but I digress. His selling was spotty at times but generally solid enough. Pretty good match. ***3/4
KO-D Tag Team Title #1 Contendership Match: Chris Brookes & Masahiro Takanashi vs. Nautilus (Naomi Yoshimura & Yuki Ueno)
Chris Brookes is back! Never been a big Chris Brookes fan -- he is decent but never connected with me a whole lot -- but his DDT run has been rad. There is some clever link-up play with Takanashi here. Still have no clue how they set up the double octopus stretch so seamlessly. Ueno and Yoshimura are the up-and-comers in the DDT roster, showing tons of promise and they continued that here. Ueno was awesome at taking an ass beating and selling. His drop kick had some great height on it as well. Naomi Yoshimura was a beast when he got into the match. He had great chemistry with Takanashi. Takanashi’s a great person for Yoshimura to use his power strikes against. Nautilus had some really good tadom offence and felt like a more functional team than Takanashi and Brookes did. Really enjoyed them whenever they were in the ring at the same time. Awesome tag match. ***3/4
Best Two Out Of Three Falls Six Man Tag Team Match: HARASHIMA, Isami Kodaka & Yuka Sakazaki vs. Ken Ohka, Konosuke Takeshita & Shoko Nakajima
KO-D champion vs Extreme Champion, Princess Champion vs Challenger, BASARA vs Ganbare. It’s an ultimate battle here. Best 2/3 falls matches aren’t rare but it’s a specialty whenever you see them in DDT. The match did a great job of teasing certain matches such as Takeshita vs HARASHIMA and Shoko vs Yuka. HARASHIMA and Takeshita did very well to both save bits but give the crowd enough. Strike exchanges are done ad nauseam but this was pretty well done and didn’t overstay its welcome. And they kept with the story of Takeshita’s Wall Of Takeshita being a major obstacle for HARASHIMA to overcome. Kodaka and Ohka offered some great stuff. Ohka sold well and Kodaka had some crazy moves. A well built 2/3 falls match which you don’t see much these days. Great main event. ****
Overall
A great show overall. The first two matches are skippable, the second match especially. But everything after that ranged from fun to great. Best To Worst: The main event was something to watch. Builds the title matches for Ultimate Party like Takeshita vs HARASHIMA. - [****]. Chris Brookes & Masahiro Takanashi vs. Nautilus was an awesome tag match with some creative tag moves and development for Ueno and Yoshimura - [***3/4]. Ikemen vs. Tetsuya Endo was a really super worked match with great crowd manipulation by Ikemen and Endo - [***3/4]. The 4-way match was another fun match on the card. The weapon use was very creative as well whether it was used for offence or Akito using the chair to get more leverage on a victory roll. FUMA looked really good and benefited from being the aggressor the whole match and made great use of his shine. A very well done Hardcore match - [***1/2]. Yamato/Katsumura vs. Watase/Sakaguchi had an awesome moment were Katsumura sat down and offered his back for Sakaguchi to kick (think Shibata vs Goto) and caught his foot and turned it into an ankle lock. That was awesome. Hiroshi Yamato and Watase had some good exchanges. All in all a pretty good match - [***]. Opener - [**1/2]. DAMNATION vs Tall Lads - [**].
Comments
Post a Comment