0. STARTING BATTLE KICKOFF ~Tokyo Joshi Pro Offer 10-Woman Tag Match~ Kaya Toribami Debut Match: Mirai Maiumi, Suzume, Haruna Neko, Moka Miyamoto & Arisu Endo Vs Nao Kakuta, Raku, Pom Harajuku, Mahiro Kiryu & Kaya Toribami
This is a multi person prelim match so you can only expect so much. But this had some fun spots with it being the debut of Kaya Totibami, who looked like a real talent. Mirai Maiumi and Kiryu looked like real strong wrestlers on their teams and had a good closing stretch with Mirai scoring a win with a lariat to the face. Raku was hilarious with her schtick too. **1/2
0. STARTING BATTLE ~ Staggered Admission Battle Royal: Yoshiaki Yatsu Vs Toru Owashi Vs Kazuki Hirata Vs Makoto Oishi Vs Saki Akai Vs Antonio Honda Vs Yusuke Okada Vs Yuya Koroku Vs Yuji Hino Vs Mohammed Yone Vs Shuhei Taniguchi Vs Akitoshi Saito Vs Masao Inoue Vs Yuna Manase Vs Shu Sakurai
Admittedly this is somewhat disappointing compared to the other battle Royals that DDT offers in these big shows. Perhaps the influx of the NOAH talent bogged down the usual synergy of the match. But still Yatsu hitting a suplex with one prosthetic leg was incredible. Hirata dancing and doing his comedy routine was a riot as well. There wasn't much to sink your teeth into though. **
0. STARTING BATTLE MAIN ~ Ganbare☆Pro Wrestling Offer Match: Ken Ohka, Keisuke Ishii & Shota Vs Shuichiro Katsumura, Kouki Iwasaki & Yumehito Imanari
One of the biggest spots that the Ganbare Pro wrestlers will have in their careers, so despite being a pre show match, they worked really hard and got a really good match out of it. This was a super quick six man tag with everyone throwing caution to the wind in order to be the one who gets the pin. Can't fault anyone in this match as they were all good. ***1/4
Junta Miyawaki & Kinya Okada vs. Toui Kojima & Yuki Ino
Three of the four are lower card wrestlers while Ino has some experience working main events with the former All Out stable so that side losing was a bit of a shock. Okada and Miyawaki looked good though. Perhaps needing some polishing, Okada in particular, but promising. Miyawaki slapping Kojima before tying him up was a great finish. **1/4
Hyper Misao & Shoko Nakajima vs. BAKURETSU Sisters (Nodoka Tenma & Yuki Aino) vs. Daydream (Miu Watanabe & Rika Tatsumi)
An outright solid match. Daydream stood out with their terrific chemistry as a team but Shoko Nakajima took the reins individually with her match drive and workrate. **3/4
Super Sasadango Machine & Danshoku Dino vs Takashi Sugiura & Kazushi Sakuraba
Despite Dino and Sasadango giving an extensive and funny power point presentation, Sakuraba and Sugiura still win by doing out with their own Strong Machine masks. Sakuraba has had this gimmick since his Pride days and with Sasadango as his opponent, it was appropriate for him to bring it back. The best thing about the masks was they could hide their laughter which was constant. They couldn't contain themselves to the point Sakuraba had to hide his face in the corner. Hilarious match. Pure comedy gold. ***
Hideki Okatani vs. Masa Kitamiya
This was somewhat thrown together after Kitamiya turned on Nakajima and Kongoh. Okatani had some nice energy to his offence but this barely lasted two minutes. Quick easy squash to give Kitamiya a win. *
Maki Ito, Marika Kobashi & Yuki Kamifuku vs. Hikari Noa, Mizuki & Yuki Arai
This is another Tokyo Joshi Pro showcase but most importantly, it's a match that involves TJP’s new part timer, SKE48’s Yuki Arai. They put her with the right people. Her opponents are all personality driven who work light and her teammates are popular acts who can carry the workrate aspects of the match. It's smart match-making. The match had a cold story too with everyone ganging up on Yuki Arai who's outmatched despite efforts. Maki Itoh had some decent character work, berating Akai several times and taunting Arai’s Idol Group colleague, Jurina Matsui, on the outside with the middle finger. Arai actually had some solid hope spots. She really nailed the Scorpion Rising Kick and caught Itoh on the button with her elbow. Obviously she is limited but she can easily improve in time as what she did in this showed she could. Itoh ultimately tapped her out with a sick Boston Crab but it was a hell of an effort. ***1/4
Momo No Seishun Tag (Atsushi Kotoge & Daisuke Harada) & Hajime Ohara vs. Stinger (HAYATA, Seiki Yoshioka & Yoshinari Ogawa)
Even if you don't watch NOAH, you know of this long lasting rivalry, filled with turns, stable changes, etc. It makes it hard to really invest in this match. I think the work individually was fine but, to me, this was just another soulless Junior Heavyweight match by the NOAH Juniors. Yoshioka stood out due to his lighting speed, but the match also had HAYATA in it so it was a give and take. Harada winning is neat though. **
DAMNATION (Daisuke Sasaki, Soma Takao & Tetsuya Endo) (w/Mad Paulie) vs. The 37KAMIINA (MAO & Shunma Katsumata) & Chris Brookes
I used this match to get food and drinks so I missed the early parts of the match. But I watched most of it, which was mostly very good. Just like most multi man matches on this show, this was a fast paced match with each wrestler getting their time to shine. Endo hit a sweet shooting star press on the outside. He had to get that perfect and he did. ***
Kongo (Hao, Katsuhiko Nakajima, Kenou, Manabu Soya, Nio & Tadasuke) vs. Eruption (Kazusada Higuchi & Yukio Sakaguchi), Akito, Naomi Yoshimura, Sanshiro Takagi & Yukio Naya
There are tons of potential matchups that would be quite the match. Kenoh vs Sakaguchi, Sakaguchi vs Nakajima, Nio vs Akito, Higuchi vs Nakajima. And they teased a bunch of those match ups in this which was great. Kenoh was desperately trying to dismiss Takagi as a threat, ignoring the hard elbows Takagi was throwing to stare Sakaguchi in the face but Sakaguchi wasn't having any of it and made a point to teach him a lesson and help out the Boss. One thing the match did a great job at was incorporating the DDT gimmicks into a serious stable. Kongoh didn't want to get much involved with Takagi riding the Dramatic Dream Mobile at first but Kenoh had a bit of fun and decided to ride it himself which was a great moment. The finish with Sakaguchi, with the help of Yoshihiko locked on a rear naked choke, much to the humiliation of Kenoh while Takagi pinned one of his team mates in front of him. Great match, although it lost me at times. ***1/2
Kaito Kiyomiya & Yoshiki Inamura vs. The 37KAMIINA (Konosuke Takeshita & Yuki Ueno)
It was great seeing Kiyomiya against wrestlers that he can consider his equals and peers. No offence to Go Shiozaki, Takashi Sugiura and Marufuji, but they aren't his peers, but rather his seniors which makes him feel lesser to them in a promotion like NOAH. Here, he feels like what he is presented as. He's a NOAH representative and a star. That makes a world of difference. The match itself was excellent. It was exactly what you want from a dream interpromotional match. No one was the clear weak link. Everyone went full pelt, trying to shine above each other and score the victory for their respective promotions. It was a series of bombs and bombs with the occasional cohesive tag team wrestling in between. Takeshita and Kiyomiya had some banging exchanges where they'd throw each other on their necks and keep on ticking out of pride. Ueno and Inamura had their spotlight as well. It was very hard to ignore Ueno hitting amazing dropkicks at a drop of a dime and even scoring the pin fall victory over Kiyomiya, which was a big shock to everyone including myself. Great interpromotional bout. ***3/4
Princess Of Princess Title Match: Miyu Yamashita (c) vs. Yuka Sakazaki
What started as a small time gig on gym mats turned into a thriving promotion with way more great wrestlers than one would expect on first glance. And now they are in one of the billed main events of a Super Saitama Arena show. What a rise. They opted for a big match version of their normal match, as this is the setting for it. And they peaked real high because of it. Their strike exchanges were more compelling than they had any right to be and Miyu’s kicks were sensational. But there was some sloppiness sneaked into that prevented it from being a MOTYC. A few whiffed moves here and there, mainly Yuka’s attempted splash after Miyu rolled in the ring and then a totally missed elbow shot near the ropes. I also believe there may be some
A great candidate for the match of the night for me. I'm glad Miyu won too. She was the star of the match and deserved the big win at the big show for her role in raising TJPW from a small thing holding Sambo exhibitions to where it is now. ***3/4
KO-D Openweight Title Match: Jun Akiyama (c) vs. HARASHIMA
Unfortunately for HARASHIMA, he loses this match despite his legacy and status in DDT but he put in a hard fought effort. His selling of the neck work Akiyama did throughout the match turned it from fine to really solid. HARASHIMA had some great hope spots that allowed for them to get a bit more momentum and inject a bit more excitement into the match. But I can't fault them. Akiyama is a bit slower in his old age but his work is logical and does progress a match in a well worked way. Akiyama retains the KO-D Openweight Title and HARASHIMA has to move on quickly, although he looked unhappy with himself after the match. ***1/2
GHC Heavyweight Title Match: Keiji Muto (c) vs. Naomichi Marufuji
I don't know whether this is a hot feud or not within the Pro Wrestling NOAH World but it's Marufuji taking on Mutoh so it being in the main event isn't that surprising. But after the previous 4 matches were an absolute hit, this came off lacklustre by comparison. The mat work was dire. I can't lie. Utter dross, slow and boring work from Marufuji and Mutoh on both sides of the table. The only bright spark was Mutoh hitting the Dragon Screws, which he can still do rather quickly. The spot of the match was Mutoh leaning on the ropes as Marufuji attempted a Springboard Dropkick and then hit a Dragon Screw with Marufuji tied up in the ropes. That's a genius spot among the sterileness that was this match. At least, Mutoh showed that he could hit the Moonsault and it gained a surprising nearfall as Marufuji was able to kick out. The closing stretch was okay. Marufuji hit many crescent kicks and knee strikes before getting the shock win to end the match. I hated this, but I'll be generous. **
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