Big Japan: 13th February 2009 (part two)

They manage to squeeze four matches into this show, and three of those came in the first twenty five minutes. Takeda and Isami vs. Okabayashi and Kawakami is joined in progress. I thought this was pretty fun for what aired. Isami has a fairly unique demeanour - he almost seems like he's holding back on some of his strikes. A lot of young smaller Japanese wrestlers look like their bursting out of their faces with the strain of each forearm. Isami doesn't particularly, and it comes across punkish. Theses younger guys can work a decent tag match without all the Big Japan gimmickry - they have a couple of double team spots, and interesting non-deathmatch offense (I love Takeda working quasi-shoot style or amateur spots into his matches, the takedown like suplex looks great). Both guys, Takeda in particular, make Okabayashi's Sekimoto like offence look great, the bump off the wild lariat was a highlight. Still, this was six minutes of a nine minute match, but I felt they put in a good effort.

Abdullah Kobayashi & MASADA vs. Shadow WX and Ohashi was nearly a squash, with WX marginalised and Ohashi taking a beating. Nothing particulalry exciting, although I did enjoy Abby cartwheeling the referee to break a submission hold halfway through. This is the reason for Abby - completely dumb stuff. Also, increasingly creepy moustaches. The final Masada powerbomb was head-bouncingly brutal.

I didn't realise, foolishly, that they were playing for the draw in the main event - I should have. This is exactly how those tiring Sekimoto vs. Tanaka matches go. I'm really not interested in watching a never-ending cycle of finishers without any build or purpose, but there's about ten minutes of that nonsense at the end of this. Only thing I particularly liked about it was Shuji Ishikawa playing his role well. He had a bunch of great knee based strikes and running attacks, which were doubly pleasing every time they cut off a badly timed Sekimoto flurry. His few in-ring exchanges with Mammoth were good and properly conveyed the sense of two big men clashing. Ito isn't really the guy to really sell nearfalls, despite the magnitude of offense he took, so I never felt drawn into the finishing stretch.

This entire show wasn't great - the headline stuff from the tag tournament was quite underwhelming, and not smartly worked. I expect better match ups later on.