GHC Heavyweight Title Match: Kenta Kobashi (c) vs. Tamon Honda
This was electric. The first title defence for Kobashi was a good one and is arguably the best one after Takayama. Honda is a well respective olympian with all the cred in the world in the amateur sense but he wasn’t a main eventer and he had a small chance of winning. He gives a hell of an effort in a career making performance that had the crowd rallying behind him and biting on every submission. Kobashi is a mountain to climb for any wrestler and Honda does a fantastic job at breaking Kobashi down to his bare essentials of lariats and last gasp suplexes.
Loved the opening exchange of Kobashi hitting a chop only for Honda to say “screw that” and take him down on the floor and try and twist him in knots. Kobashi replies with a headlock and squeezes on tight. If there is one person that can make a headlock feel crucial, it’s Kobashi. The technical work was splendid with the two trying to grind on each other with some great defensive throws mixed in by Honda. The section of the ramp felt a bit. Kobashi spiking Honda with a DDT and Honda struggling to get up was some great piece of selling. The set up for Dead End was fantastic and was the big turning point for Honda with Kobashi going for a spinning chop, Honda ducking and dragging Kobashi over the top rope and planting him on the rampway. Then Honda begins to attack Kobashi’s injured arm that’s wrapped up and is then sold brilliantly by Kobashi. Even in the closing stretch when Kobashi was hitting lariats, the selling was great. The nearfalls were extremely effective and hooked me every time but I think the magic was the Olympic Hell attempts. Honda had some awesome transitions and that dramatic stretch where he had the OH locked on with Kobashi slowly losing the will to struggle was pretty epic. Outstanding performance by both men. Kobashi was very minimalistic compared to traditional Kobashi matches but he still came off like Kobashi. Honda was excellent at what he brought to the match. ****1/2
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