Kaientai Dojo: 12th April 2009

There was a four month gap between taped K-Dojo shows, I have the first three of 2009, and there's four more to come.

There's a couple of clipped openers to start, before the three-way UWA Middleweight Title match. This was about eight minutes of spots, some of which were kind of fun using all three guys, and some of the timing was pretty impressive. I don't know how to do a well-worked three way, they often become sprints. This was a sprint, it was fine. Quiet Storm shouts his name out a lot, putting me in mind of Matt Damon in Team American, but I think he could be a fun, short bruiser in the Dick Togo mold. He throws nice punches and lariats at least.

The WEW Hardcore tag title match was a bit sloppy. They brawl out into the crowd at one point, and Kojiro leaps off a ladder which is on an elevated bit, with the ladder slipping as he jumped and him basically hitting nothing but floor - this was stupid, and not in a good way. First time I've seen Inematsu post-heel turn, but this wasn't really a match that allowed him to standout.

The Yuji Hino-KAZMA match was pretty slow paced. I'm not someone who gets particularly excited by your-turn-my-turn strike battles, which this did have, partly, I would assume, to play out the grudge match aspect of the match. This wasn't the semi-comedic heel Hino that you often get with him against smaller guys, but he's still plenty expressive throughout. KAZMA, by comparison, is incredibly bland, both facially and through his moveset. I thought they did a decent job with the fatigue, nearer the end, and overall this was perfectly decent power-based match.

The bit that I liked about the tag title match was right at the beginning, with Tonai doing some arm-based mat stuff that I wasn't expecting. It became a footnote, but Hiro Tonai is not a wrestler I've ever been interested in before, and now I am. While Takizawa is your standard crowd-rallying indie junior with shiny trousers, I feel like Tonai might actually be pretty useful in a more understated way, and want to see him in some singles. Champions do less schtick (in Oishi's case, less stick) and more jumpy-kicky stuff, and this was largely forgettable.

I'd watched the main event before, on download when it first aired, and didn't think much of it, so I was surprised to give it a rewatch and discover I actually did. I mean, the body part stuff, particularly TAKA's leg selling goes nowhere (or more specifically, it goes elsewhere), but aside from that annoyance, they actually put together a very focused match, built around each man looking for his biggest moves, and returning to them where possible. I thought there were some nice touches here. I liked the bit where Mashimo reaches the ropes after a crossface, only to end up in a similar position a few moments later - however, when Mashimo reaches for the ropes as before, TAKA grabs the arm and locks it up, forcing his opponent to shuffle much close to the ropes and grab them with his teeth. We got 22 minutes out of the 38, and I have no earthly idea how it was clipped that much without me noticing. The finish reflected the length of the match - the Michinoku Driver II almost a collapse and a slam rather than a deadly head-drop. Certainly more good than bad in this, and a pleasant surprise.