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UWF Rules Tag Team Match: Takanori Ito & Yu Iizuka vs. Hideki Sekine & Hikaru Sato
I’m not entirely sure whether the shoot style setting best suits the tag team style and vice versa but there have been decent matches despite it. Ito is looking like a good prospect and Sato is proven. Iizuka has a way to go and Sekine can depend on the day. Sato and Iizuka started off, careful to be the first to throw a purposeful strike, which proved to be reasonable when Iizuka shot in after a Sato kick. Iizuka was able to get on top of Sato for a cross armbreaker attempt. Sato responded with a guillotine attempt that turned into a gogoplata. Iizuka almost got the ropes but thought against using one of them. Smart. Ito is a bit more brave in the stand-up, bouncing around with more confidence. Ito stuffs a takedown attempt twice and Sato has to acquiesce and tags in Sekine. Sekine does get a successful takedown, grabbing the waist for a German Suplex that Ito blocks. Sekine, despite his look, is light on his feet and moves around Ito very well. Sekine continued to beat Ito in their portion of the match but Ito was slowly able to gain control with a persistent waistlock. Iizuka and Sekine have some good exchanges as well, including a really well done heel hook counter that lead to the first rope break of the match. Sato and Ito immediately raise the tempo of the match with some strike exchanges and Sato going for the heel that forces a second rope break - 3-5. Ito replies with an awesome german suplex for a down. Sato just makes it to his feet only to get blasted with a combination of palm strikes and head kicks. Iizuka gets desperate to continue the moment, especially with the time limit looming but almost gets caught in a triangle. The score does get tied with a manji gatame into a rope break at the last second and the match time runs out. A draw is the result. A smartly booked match that made good use of the rope breaks, still able to get drama out of the rules without using all of them. Only two on each team sufficed. Good match;. ***1/2
Kaito Ishida vs. Tetsuya Izuchi
It’s great to see that Ishida will continue to wrestle outside of Dragongate now. He was so good here. The match is basically a series of kick exchanges, not much structure to it but it was very compelling overall. Ishida and Izuchi were up for it and made a bunch of strike (both kicking and elbow) exchanges interesting for nearly 20 minutes. ***1/2
No Disqualification Tag Team Match: Jun Kasai & Masashi Takeda vs. BULK Orchestra (Hayato Tamura & Ryuichi Kawakami)
A No DQ is a good way to get these two at their best while not going over that deathmatch line for the non-dm fans, though some of the key deathmatch spots do pop up, such as the skewers. The blood gets leaked fairly quickly into the match as Kasai and Takeda take over. Takeda splits Kawami open with a pair of scissors and Tamura has to suffer a splash through a table. The crowd got behind the company duo surprisingly (they are heels after all) and that made the match a compelling watch. Takeda really came off like a maniac in the match but who wouldn’t when that person did a cross armbreaker with scissors in hand. Takeda’s and Kasai’s teamwork was really great as well as BULK Orchestra. Despite the tone of the match, this still felt like a true tag team match that focused on team work rather than four individuals. Unfortunately the GLEAT guys still have to do jobs to get outside talent in but the match was good, at least. ***3/4
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