Hideki Okatani Debut Match: Naomi Yoshimura & Keigo Nakamura Vs Shunma Katsumata & Hideki Okatani
A nice show to debut on for young Okatani-Kun. And the people he’s with are good picks. His counterpart, Keigo Nakamura, a fellow rookie, has shown promise so maybe he’ll follow the path himself. Or is it a perfect opportunity for Nakamura to punk someone else for a change? Okatani predictably got tons of moments to shine and he honestly didn't look too bad. He showed some great fire and fit well into the match. The stuff with Nakamura was interesting, Yoshimura leathered him and Shunma was Shunma. **3/4
Iron Man Heavymetalweight Title – Time Difference Battle Royal: Toru Owashi (c) Vs Danshoku Dieno Vs Masahiro Takanashi Vs Antonio Honda Vs Kazuki Hirata Vs Mizuki Watase Vs Yukio Naya Vs Hiroshi Yamato
These time difference battle royals are always the best. And the lineup is super promising. And we kicked it off Takanashi pinning Owashi during the entrance to win the belt then everyone coming out and making it a regular battle royal. 4-Way Dueling champers were crowned during the match which was a nice twist on the 2 champions gimmick Owashi and Yamato did before. There was Honda doing his Gon The Fox pokes to Dino’s…*cough* hole. More Hirata nonsense closes out to battle royal, with him winning. Celebrations rains out before Owashi comes out and pins Hirata to win back the Heavymetalweight title!! Fun battle royal. ***
Moonlight Express (MAO & Mike Bailey), Shinya Aoki, & Makoto Oishi Vs DAMNATION (Soma Takao & Mad Paulie) & Strong Hearts (CIMA & El Lindaman)
BAKA SURVIVOR!! It’s a shame that we don’t get the DDT Extreme Title being defended but any Aoki appearance is fine by me. I’ve missed Moonlight Express so much. The first thing they pulled off was some excellent fluid tag work with double kicks and moonsaults (which was missed btw). Both had a few funny moments, like MAO wiggling his way out of everything and Lindaman trying to emulate Bailey’s speedball kicks to Bailey’s bewilderment. CIMA being the maestro of his teams was enjoyable to watch. Him conducting and leading several big tag sequences whether it was with Soma Takao or Lindaman, was awesome. He and Aoki had some great flashes of what could be a great match. CIMA’s lucha style influence grappling vs Aoki’s MMA style would be a treat to watch. The frog splash finish from the DAMNATION & SH team was a good finish too. ***3/4
DISASTER BOX (HARASHIMA, Naomichi Marufuji & Yuki Ueno) Vs ALL OUT (Akito & Yuki Iino) & Royce Chambers
Royce Chambers is DDT’s newest foreign wrestler on the tours. And DDT usually picks them well (ignore Cody Hall). He looked good at the Saitama show and the Dojo shows too, that I watched anyway. This was pretty unstructured with everyone coming in without tags most of the time, doing sequences whether it was as a team or singles and getting out. Thankfully the match had a ton of good moments to keep the match going. Marufuji basically just chopped everyone. Akito kept on hitting some innovative offence. Chambers hit some spectacular moves like the Sasakue Special. Ueno was impressive as well. Good match. ***1/2
Business Alliance Vs Eruption!: DAMNATION (Tetsuya Endo & Nobuhiro Shimatani) & T-Hawk Vs Eruption (Kazusada Higuchi, Yukio Sakaguchi & Saki Akai)
It’s everyone’s favourite stable, Eruption and DAMNATION too.. T-Hawk. Buddy.. You’re just there. Unlike the prior match, this had more cohesive storytelling with the DAMNATION & Co isolating Saki Akai early as the weak individual of Eruption and working her over. T-Hawk, in T-Hawk fashion, hit a nasty chop to Akai, not letting up at all. Nobu and Endo show some excellent chemistry as a duo when they pull off some great looking tandem sequences on Higuchi, MCMG style. The match finishes off nicely with Sakaguchi leading the big Eruption come back and winning with a PK. ***1/2
Tetsuya Endo vs Royce Chambers
Chambers says he is leaving for Australia so he might as well cash in his AW/AT gauntlet against Endo’s title shot sword at Super Saitama!! This was a quick exchange between two gifted aerial wrestlers. Chambers loses in quick fashion. Endo survives another day. **1/2
DDT UNIVERSAL Title: Chris Brookes (c) Vs Daisuke Sasaki
Chris Brookes defends the DDT Universal title for the first time against multi-time former KO-D Openweight Champion, leader of DAMNATION, the Drunk of a Generation (my nickname for him), Daisuke Sasaki. Brookes, similar to the Takeshita match, Brookes attacks the hand using the guardrail, stomping on it whilst it was trapped and then just jumping on Sasaki. What worked once, may work again. But Brookes tries to use the chairs to his advantage when Sasaki feels more at home when they are in play and uses that to gain control of the match. Sasaki trapped Brookes’ neck in a chair and threw him into the post, injuring the neck. Sasaki did some good work to further hurt Brookes. He rained multiple elbow shots to the area and used the front facelock to good effect. Brookes had sporadic signs of a comeback but Sasaki kept on cutting him off until Sasaki hit a great rope draped dropkick but that was sadly only a set up for Brookes to do a pop-up-run up the drops and do a suplex, a underhook suplex in this case. However, Sasaki took a BIG bump to make up for it. The last third changed its tune with Sasaki getting desperate after failing to put Brookes away, enlisting DAMNATION’s help but Brookes gets rid of them easily and stops on Sasaki’s hands when he is begging for forgiveness which was awesome. The flash pin exchange before Sasaki locked on La Mistica was a really good stretch to end the match on, and it again played on how Brookes won the title himself. The match was a bit disjointed at times, the hand work didn’t really go anywhere and there were some elements that didn’t feel entirely together but the match overall was super entertaining. Sasaki was pretty great I thought and Brookes held up his end too. ***1/2
KO-D Openweight Title: Masato Tanaka (c) Vs Konosuke Takeshita
The clash of generations! Takeshita grew up watching Tanaka wrestle in his prime, he grew up wanting to wrestle him. And now he gets that chance. Masato Tanaka has had a battle fought title run thus far, struggling past both HARASHIMA and MAO, not to mention beating former KO-D Champ, Endo in the D-Ou Finals. But can he get past the ace of DDT? This looked to be the best title match in the Tanaka run. However, it let itself down when the match got all mindless with an extended no-sell exchange. Tanaka targeted the leg of Takeshita in the early going, trapping his leg against the post and smacking it multiple times with a chair. Tanaka hit a dragon screw and then a Sliding D right to the knee that could’ve easily dislocated the knee joint. Takeshita being unable to move quick enough the table Tanaka put him on before hitting a splash was a great touch. Tanaka using a piece of the broken table ruled as well. The second half of the match had heavy emphasis on big impact moves but both kept on no selling them, including Tanaka’s Sliding Ds. It left me slightly cold for a good while, until Takeshita began throwing some meaty punches with Tanaka replying with elbows. The finishing rolling elbow hit right on the button for a great finish. ***1/4
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