Ikuto Hidaka & Koji Iwamoto vs. Astronauts (Fuminori Abe & Takuya Nomura)
The finish to this match was awesome. Abe, without breaking motion, was able to reverse Iwamoto’s Kokou no Geijutsu attempt and lock in a crucifix cradle for the three count. Exactly the type of thing you'd expect from this match - lots of nifty counters out of dangerous predicaments. The Astronauts showed good tag chemistry, stringing together a few good double team offensive moves. There was a running bit where they'd do a double team move and end it with either Nomura or Abe kicking Hidaka, who is left flat footed, off the apron. Hidaka at 48 is still as fast as ever, being able to keep up and evade Abe’s attempts early in the match. He is truly blessed with eternal youth. We got some good exchanges from Iwamoto and Nomura as well. Nomura was trying to be his usual dismissive self but Iwamoto wasn't having it and laid in a few hard elbows for good measure. Good match. The eventual Abe/Iwamoto sounds promising. I'll definitely seek that out. ***1/4
Masato Tanaka vs. Zeus
This was a pretty stupid match where they have to no-sell certain moves - signature moves like the Corner DDT from Tanaka - so they hit another spot. That's par for the course for Masato Tanaka, but I don't really think Zeus’ strengths lie in that style of match. Also Zeus taking the loss is a head scratcher, unless All Japan is planning on using Tanaka similar to how DDT used him in 2020. No matter how meat headed this was, it was inoffensive at least. Thankfully compact as well. **1/4
AJPW World Tag Team Title Match: Violent Giants (Shuji Ishikawa & Suwama) (c) vs. Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi
2020 was a year where I stopped watching All Japan but I decided to give it another go in 2021 and this main event wasn't the best match to come back too. Now looking on cagematch and other rating sites, this is a praised match by most, getting high ratings. But this wasn't anything great. It was a match that had a solid build and a rather heatless closing stretch that failed to get me excited for the upcoming Suwama/Aoyagi match that takes place tomorrow. Aoyagi surviving Suwama’s onslaught and making a comeback was good booking but the execution was really lacking any spark or energy. It felt endless and lifeless. Plus with Kyohei Wada's shockingly slow counts, the drama of the closing stretch was absolutely lost on me. Now the rest of the match was decent enough to make this fairly worthwhile. Kento and Aoyagi were solid as a unit, picking apart the VGs to overcome the size disadvantage, although it didn't work. Kento and Ishikawa showed great chemistry in their exchanges, peaking the match with that insane piledriver on the apron that took out Kento for the rest of the match. The result means that the Violent Giants will disband which is big considering they were voted Best Tag Team three years in a row by Tokyo Sports. Massive implications. While I didn't love the second half of the match, there is plenty to love from this match. ***
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