Rasse vs. Daisuke Sasaki featured Sasaki brining some nice looking high spots and sequences and Rasse, bizarrely, bringing next to nothing. Sasaki could potentially be a fun flyer. The two Kowloon matches (Satos vs. Numajiro and Oyanagi, Minamino, Ooma and Ken45° vs. Yapper Man #1 & Yapper Man #2 and Kenbai) didn't do anything I hadn't seen before. The latter in particular was heavy on the rope running and light on structure.
The multi-promotional invitation match pitted El Samurai, Takashi Sasaki and Boso Boy Raito against Ryuji Ito, HIROKI and Daichi Sasaki. I believe this was Daichi Sasaki's debut - I don't know what his connection is to Sasuke, but the story of the match was all about him getting beaten up. Samurai was a lot of fun in this, especially the bit where I thought he'd actually broken Daichi's nose with a punch, and then he follows it up with a bunch of dickish submissions where he kept returning to the nose. Daichi, for his part, brought the weakest strikes of all time. I don't know if it was on purpose, but there's no escaping the fact that he did a lot of stroking of chests.
The semi-main was Ultimo Dragon, Minamino and Nohashi vs. Shinzaki, Kenou and Hiugaji. Unlike every other Kowloon trios match for the past two years, this one was packed with genuine heat, violence and palpable dislike between the two sides. Heel Ultimo Dragon is as watchable as face Ultimo Dragon is dull. He comes off like a true rudo captain, directing triple teams, taunting opponents, taking shortcuts, begging off and luring the faces into an ambush. Also, his new mask is awesome. It starts with Hayato attempting to fight through an injured leg, until Kenou kicks it to shreds. This leads to Minamino leaping in, sparking a huge brawl - not a time filling one like, but truly glorious chaos. Even Shinzaki was motivated, moving faster than I'd seen in a long time against Nohashi. The pairing on Minamino and Kenou produced the matches best moments: this gets so intense that Kenou seems to lose all interest in the match at the expense of kicking Minamino a bunch more times. There's a spot where Nohashi has him on his knees, and he still keeps on punching Minamino in the midriff despite him being far less of an immediate concern. He forgoes making a hot tag when he has the opportunity (more kicking), and even when he's the last man standing after an series of moves between all six, he prefers to take Minamino to the outside and post him some more, rather than seek a pinfall. It's kind of exhilirating, and the match is kind of one of my favourite things from Japan this year.
The multi-promotional invitation match pitted El Samurai, Takashi Sasaki and Boso Boy Raito against Ryuji Ito, HIROKI and Daichi Sasaki. I believe this was Daichi Sasaki's debut - I don't know what his connection is to Sasuke, but the story of the match was all about him getting beaten up. Samurai was a lot of fun in this, especially the bit where I thought he'd actually broken Daichi's nose with a punch, and then he follows it up with a bunch of dickish submissions where he kept returning to the nose. Daichi, for his part, brought the weakest strikes of all time. I don't know if it was on purpose, but there's no escaping the fact that he did a lot of stroking of chests.
The semi-main was Ultimo Dragon, Minamino and Nohashi vs. Shinzaki, Kenou and Hiugaji. Unlike every other Kowloon trios match for the past two years, this one was packed with genuine heat, violence and palpable dislike between the two sides. Heel Ultimo Dragon is as watchable as face Ultimo Dragon is dull. He comes off like a true rudo captain, directing triple teams, taunting opponents, taking shortcuts, begging off and luring the faces into an ambush. Also, his new mask is awesome. It starts with Hayato attempting to fight through an injured leg, until Kenou kicks it to shreds. This leads to Minamino leaping in, sparking a huge brawl - not a time filling one like, but truly glorious chaos. Even Shinzaki was motivated, moving faster than I'd seen in a long time against Nohashi. The pairing on Minamino and Kenou produced the matches best moments: this gets so intense that Kenou seems to lose all interest in the match at the expense of kicking Minamino a bunch more times. There's a spot where Nohashi has him on his knees, and he still keeps on punching Minamino in the midriff despite him being far less of an immediate concern. He forgoes making a hot tag when he has the opportunity (more kicking), and even when he's the last man standing after an series of moves between all six, he prefers to take Minamino to the outside and post him some more, rather than seek a pinfall. It's kind of exhilirating, and the match is kind of one of my favourite things from Japan this year.
Finally, the main event: Great Sasuke and Dick Togo vs. FUNAKI and TAKA Michinoku, for Sasuke's 20th anniversary. Sasuke comes out the some heavy metal, fist-pumping and faking playing the guitar in the crowd. He also has a little beard. Obviously, it was goofy as hell. This is a match of two very different teams. First question - how is it that FUNAKI looks like the oldest, most tired person in this match. He's spent the last decade doing backstage interviews and two minute matches. Anyway, he and TAKA really don't do anything of interest in the whole match - their heat section on Sasuke was plodding and dull and not exactly classic Kaientai DX. Sasuke and Togo, on the other hand, worked really hard. Togo is the support player here, but all of his bits were really fun, his offence is still crisp and violent where other 90s juniors have become slack. His somersault tope was pretty spectacular, almost threatening to outdo all of Sasuke's crazy dives. He's also really great at getting the crowd going, and setting up Sasuke to take centre stage. Sasuke, for his part, was his usual self once he got there, a combination of big risky moves and the weariness of an ageing body. Spot of the match was Sasuke missing a somersault senton, watching TAKA roll out of the ring, and dragging himself up the turnbuckle to have another go. Fun, but perhaps not as good as I was hoping.
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