BJW World Strong Heavyweight Title Match: Yuji Okabayashi (c) vs. Hideyoshi Kamitani - BJW - 02/01/2023
I do love a good Yuji Okabayashi title match. Unfortunately, this was far too long and wasn’t wrestled in a manner that is required for 30 minutes. If you cut 10 minutes of this, I think you get a more interesting bout. This was champion vs champion but with one title on the line and despite being Death Match champion, Kamitani is still the lesser of the two so he had to find otherwise to beat Okabayashi outside of going toe to toe, such as working the leg. The work was solid but lacked tension. The crux of the match was typical strong match stuff, which is always good. But as I said, there wasn’t much to gravitate towards. ***1/4
KO-D Openweight Title Match: Kazusada Higuchi (c) vs. Yuji Hino - DDT Sweet Dreams! 2023 - 29/01/2023
I put off the match (and subsequently, the company) for months because I wasn’t willing to watch a chops match because I’ve long since gotten tired of them, and that seems to be the wise choice. The match started out as a potentially interesting heavyweight bout with nicely worked headlocks but the chops soon came. The first set was actually fine and had the crowd rocking for them but the match peaked at those points and the chops just kept coming. I lost interest, although they did some cool spots here and there and they really did nail each other. But there wasn’t anything truly engaging about this sort of match. It’s the match that caused me to feel sour about Higuchi/Sakaguchi and this is a longer version of that, except no kicking to add some variety. Shame. Keep the good stuff and progress away from the chops earlier in the bout and you’ve got something. The worst kind of Japanese heavyweight match. *
BJW Junior Heavyweight Title Match: Kota Sekifuda (c) vs. Fuminori Abe - BJW - 12/02/2023
This is a classic junior heavy match for the indies, a good mix of strikes and submissions with cool counters to weld it all together. Sekifuda isn’t one of the best wrestlers today but he’s a fun wrestler under this style, especially when against Abe, who is just great. Some cool supexes here and there. This was a cool match that’s worth checking out. ***1/2
Rey De Parejas 2023 Final Match: M3K (Susumu Mochizuki & Yasushi Kanda) vs. D'courage (Madoka Kikuta & Yuki Yoshioka) - DG Rey De Parejas 2023 - Day 13 - 02/03/2023
Awesome finals. I think it used the generational gap wisely with D’courage using previous fan favourites, Kanda and Susumi to make their own performances greater. This had a lot of good nearfals and ended with a dramatic finish. ***1/2
Open The Dream Gate Title Match: Shun Skywalker (c) vs. Strong Machine J - DG Champion Gate In Osaka - Day 2 - 05/03/2023
Not a terrific top title match but it provided a simplistic, solid portrayal of bad vs good. There is a lot of wrestling that goes more “shade of grey” and that’s fine but often it’s not good and the story is muddled. This was solid and entertaining. SMJ was easily rootable and Shun Skywalker worked aggressively. An entertaining building block with brawls made up for a so-so finishing stretch. ***1/2
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